The Road

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Why do you think McCarthy has chosen not to give his characters names? How do the generic labels of “the man” and “the boy” affect the way you /readers relate to them?

While reading The Road, a novel written by Cormac McCarthy, I was jerked from the warmth, comfort, and safety of my home and thrown into a cold, dark, and desolate world, walking alongside “the man” and “the boy”. McCarthy composes his work so graphically that readers are drawn right into the story. I believe Cormac McCarthy wanted the figures in this book to be universal, so that the reader could imagine him/her self as “the boy” or “the man” at any given moment, and to be able to feel as they do. To do this McCarthy did not designate the characters in his book with names, and because of this, I was able to connect with “the man” and “the boy” on a personal level and envision myself uniting with them in their chilling journey.

As the reader, I was deeply overwhelmed with many mixed emotions such as compassion, sadness, happiness, disgust, remorse, and fear. I have pity for the characters in the book The Road, because “the man” and “the boy” have to pass day to day struggling to survive in a frigid bleak world where food is scarce “They squatted in the road and ate rice and cold beans they’d cooked days ago.” “Already beginning to ferment.”(McCarthy 29). The landscape is blackened, and mankind is almost extinct “The mummied dead everywhere.”(McCarthy 24). As I read on I noticed myself connecting more deeply with the characters. When the boy’s mother takes her own life, I was deeply saddened and my heart broke for “the boy” simply because his mom, someone he cherished and loved so much, had given up on hope and faith and deserted him. I just wan...

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..., I jumped in the bed got as close to my husband as possible and eventually drifted off to sleep.

When I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I was astonished at how deep I was able to connect with the characters and the fact that this book touched me as deeply as it did. It also made me think what if…? In reality if this were to happen would I have the courage and strength of “the man” and “the boy” or would I be like the mother as McCarthy states it “ …a faithless slut…” (57), who has taken death as a new lover. Over all I personally believe that this novel was absolutely fantastic, even though I had nightmares for a few nights after I had completed the book. This just goes to show what a great writer McCarthy is, he touches his readers so deeply they even dream about his work. I would defiantly pick up this book and read it again just for fun.

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