The Road as a symbol

The road symbolically is a journey that you take in order to find peace and the road that you chose to take will decide you fate. In The Road McCarthy illustrates a road as being a means of an emotional and physically journey. However the road isn't described often and if described is implicit. This portrays that a road cannot be described in explicit detail as each path you take is different and the one you decide to take will determine the challenges that you face.

Symbolism in The Road

1)The road or the journey has often been used as a metaphor for life itself - the journey from birth to death. McCarthy explores this idea in the road especially with the man. The man goes on a journey on the road seeking redemption and peace from his past, he learns to let go of his past and to build a relationship again with his son. At the end of the book the man dies this relates to the idea about a journey being a metaphor for life itself as in life its envitable that you will die. The death of the man doesn't come as a shock because its expected due to the conditions they're living in and the subtle hints of weakness in the man.

2)In American Culture the road is an important symbol due to America being a large country crossing the continent symbolically shows a pioneering spirit. America is a country of hope and resilance to chose the right path. In the road the man and the boy follow the right path where the man completes his journey and the boy continues his journey with a nuclear family as protection.There are many roads in America this could represent the many different paths in life you can take but each leads you to a different fate. The bad guys follow the wrong path to cannibilism and inhumanity, where people are seen as food for surival. The boy is the pioneering spirit for the man and himself he takes them on the right path of humanity.

3)In the Greek tale of The Odyssey Ulysses goes on a journey where he encounters many mental and physical tests and trials. This tale is similar to the journey of the man as he encounters physical tests when he is shot and when he starts to feel ill because he has to decide whether to carry on or to give up. Mentally he is tested as he has to let go of the past and allow himself to forgive and forget the past in order to seek redemption. The boy also encounters mental tests as he learns to cope with teh death and destruction of the world whilst still only being a young boy. He has to cope with the death of his father and learn to survive for himself. Both the man and the boy also encounter physical tests in regard to hunger as there are many parts of the book where they have to go hungry due to the lack of food.

4)The journey as a structure for a novel implies a particular kind of pattern. In the road theres ins't a particular pattern however in the scene where the boy is playing with a truck and the follow on from that scene is the arrival of the roadrat implies a pattern that everything good always follows on with something bad. In each event in the novel the boy and the man learn something about life and their humanity. For example when the man leaves his belongings in the road it shows that he has learnt to leave his past behind and move on.

My opinion about the ending

I am disappointed by the ending as it still leaves me with unanswered questions about whether the boy is safe and humanity has been restored. Also not knowing the answers make the death of the father seems pointless. In addition the whole journey is futile because you never know whether anything has been resolved. However the ambiguous ending could be a representation on how sometimes in life there's isn't any answers.

The ending

The end does not leave you content it makes you question what will happen to the boy and whether humanity has really been restored.

The Road Rat questions

McCarthy states that the boy "took his truck from the pack and shaped roads in the ash with a stick". This statement doesn't fit with the rest of the book as this is the first time the boy is presented in a childlike manner through playing with his truck. Also it seems as if this act is insignificant until you reach the part of the road rat and realise that the truck was foreshadowing the arrival of the road rat. The boy then begins to make truck noises which illustrates that he has heard the sound of a truck before and has associated it with his toy truck. This indicates that he's not as oblivious to the world as it may seem. In addition symbolism is used for example when the boy is shaping the roads with a stick it could be used to symbolise the cracks in the road and that every crack highlights the destruction of the world. Furthermore the fact that the innocent of the boys act is foreshadowing the dangerous event of the road rat emphasizes that all the good of the world has disintegrated.

McCarthy description of the men illustrates that they are part of the world and are a group within society. Also they are described as having "hooded heads" this evokes the sense that they're intimidating and powerful. McCarthy then states that they were wearing "canister masks... one in a biohazard suit" this suggests that they are aware of the world’s destruction and that they need to be protection from the world’s toxic fumes. This evokes the sense that the death of the world is the normality to them as they don't show a sense of fear. The biohazard suit is described as being "stained and filthy" this emphasizes that the disintegration of the world clung to the clothes and it almost seems as it’s insignificant to them. The man calls the group of men "them" this suggests that he doesn't think of them as human beings and instead another obstacle for their survival. Furthermore it shows that he sees them as the "bad guys" and doesn't seem surprised by their presence which indicates that he could sense them coming.

McCarthy describes the ship as "lumbering and creaking like a ship" this is a biblical reference to the tale of Noah’s ark as he builds a ship to save the animals from the storm. This ship could also be used to symbolise their journey and that the creaks could represent the cracks of hope and survival left in their journey. However this reference to the tale of Noah’s ark could also be used to suggest irony as Noah used the ship to save the animals whereas the journey of the man and boy is the survival of each other. In addition the word "lumbering" could highlight the monotonous and tiresome journey of the boy and the man.

McCarthy describes the road rat in great detail for many reasons. Firstly to highlight that the world has turned to cannibalism and violence. For example “like an animal inside a skull looking out the eyeholes" portrays the sense that the road rat has lost all his humanity and what if left of him is the uncontrollable hunger for survival. Also it highlights how good people cannot be defined as there's many ways to be good person and it suggests that good people are a rarity. It could be used to evoke the sense that to be a good person is hard in a world that is consumed by violence. In addition the idea of good people and bad people reflect how in the bible people are seen as either good or bad. Furthermore to emphasize how there is more bad people than good people in the world as in the road the boy and the man are seen as the minority within society.

The road rats character is explicit especially when he talks to the man to highlight that he wasn't well educated and came from a rough background through the quotation " i aint goin nowheres" reiterates that he doesn't seem to have had a good education through the use of slang. It also seems that he's trying to be hostile and aggressive towards the man by demanding that he isn't going to leave him alone. In addition the casual attitude he evokes suggests that he doesn't see the man as a threat and that he's used to fighting for his survival. This echoes the stereotype of a bad guy as he shows no remorse or kindness towards the man and doesn't care about anyone’s situation apart from his own. This aggressive character emphasizes how the violence of the world has influenced people's behaviour as it seems the only way to survive it to fight and kill other people. The man’s character is inexplicit to reiterate the sense of mystery surrounding his character and indicates the sense that he has no identity. Furthermore it could be used to show that he is scared that if he had an identity he would appear weak and an easy target for the bad guys so by appearing cold and emotionless he will seem more threatening and powerful.

The exchanges between the man and the road rat highlights that the man was well educated as he states ".... frontal lobe.... colliculus and temporal gyrus". This shows that he is highly intelligent and has extensive medical and biological knowledge about the parts of the brain that only someone who had studied it would know. Also McCarthy states that " the man dropped to the ground and ... leveled the pistol and fired from a two handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet. The swift and efficiency of these movements highlight that he has experience when using a gun and knows exactly where to shoot someone in order to kill them instantly. The quotation "at a distance of six feet" reflects that he was very accurate when shooting and to be able to shoot someone from that distance is highly impressive and would take practice to perfect. This echoes the sense that he is experienced. Finally as soon as the road rat has his son he quickly kills him which emphasizes that it was a natural instinct for him firstly to protect his son and secondly to kill someone when threatened.

The quotation ""A single round left in the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not" echoes the words of his wife as she states that “they are going to rape us and kills us and eat us and you won't face it". This shows that his wife thinks that he is a coward as he won't face the truth about the world and that she doesn't believe he will be able to kill his son as he's too weak and naive. These words are uttered within his mind to emphasize that her words are haunting him and controlling him to the point of insanity. Also it indicates the power and control she had over him and that he seemed desperate to please her but was too scared to make the ultimate sacrifice by killing his son. Furthermore the statement "you will not" reiterates that he is talking to himself and is convincing himself that he will not do it. The repetition of the statement "you will not" highlights that his mind is in torment as he is crippled with guilt for allowing his son to survive but also the fear of being alone in a dead world.

The other men do not chase the boy and the man as they had boiled "bones and the skin piled together.... a pool of guts". This highlights the inhumanity of the men as they sat in the middle of the road and ate their friend even down to the bone and the skin which echoes a sense of desperation and cannibalism as they eat everything. Also the fact that they don't cover up what they've done indicates that they are not ashamed and that cannibalism is their normality. The horrific nature of the act echoes the harshness of the situation they are in as they will do anything to survive even if that means eating their friends. Furthermore it shows how friendships are insignificant when it comes to hunger as the man they had eaten was their friend a few moments before. Finally it emphasizes how the nature of people has changed as people are more like animals than human beings.

It’s not until page 77 that the father decides to clean the gore off of the boys face. This is extremely shocking as in society today it would be natural instinct to clean the gore off of his face immediately this echoes how priorities are different when the most important thing is to survive. It’s also confusing how he takes care of him by wrapping him in blankets and feeding him but he doesn't seem to find the time until later to clean the gore off of his face. This highlights the extremity of their situation as the man sees feeding him and keeping him warm more important than the fact that his boy is covered in another mans remains. This reiterates the coldness of the mans character as he doesn't stop to think about how the boy is feeling about having gore all over his face and instead concentrates on keeping them alive

The Road techniques

iii) The death of everything living plants,trees, creatures and most other human beings- is evoked through the bleakness and deadness of the language.
McCarthy evokes the idea of the every living thing in the world is slowly dying when he describes the sea creature as having "translucent skin.... alabaster bones and eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders". The translucent skins indicates that the sea creature is slowly dying as the colour of their skin is becoming so clear that you can see the bones of the creature and the paleness of the creature represents death. McCarthy uses a simile when he states that the creature’s eyes were "dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders". This emphasizes the idea that there's no life left in the creature’s eyes as they're white. This also highlights that death is almost taking over everything that made it a living creature instead death has left it almost blind to any of the hope left in the world. McCarthy states the "segments of the road there among the dead trees. Looking for anything of colour." This intensifies the assumption that the world is so bleak that all the life and colour of everything living has been taken out of the world and instead death has left its remains of every living thing. Also it’s as if there’s no beauty left in the world as all the colour has been drained out of every living thing. In addition the quotation the "weeds they forded fell to dust about them" reiterates the idea that everything living is disintegrating into nothing. Also the abruptness of this statement suggests the finality of what’s happening and that death is becoming the normality. Furthermore the use of personification and pathetic fallacy is used for example the "nameless dark come to enshroud them". This suggests that the darkness is almost engulfing the world to the point where darkness is covering the world and trapping all the sense of humanity and hope.

vi- Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more engaging.
McCarthy avoids using emotional language as it allows you to engage with the characters more. Also as it’s you're perspective of the character it helps you to connect emotionally with the characters. For example McCarthy doesn't portray many emotions and when he does they're vague and ambiguous. The vagueness allows us to create our own assumptions and connect our own experiences with the characters experiences. McCarthy especially doesn't suggest intense emotions in the boy especially as he wants to maintain his innocence. For example "the boy was lying in his lap with no expression on his face at all". The simplicity of the sentence of the boys face having no expression at all intensifies the reader’s engagement as it makes them feel sober that the boy’s emotions have become as cold as his father. In addition it could be showing that the boy is finally accepting that death is normality and in order to survive it has to be done. He further reiterates the sense of coldness within the boy when he states that "... his forehead covered with gore and mute as a stone" this is a horrific image presented by McCarthy as the boy has a man’s remains on his face but he maintains emotionless. It’s almost as if death has numbed him to the point where he's silenced himself from the rest of the world and made him self oblivious to death that’s right in front of him. Also the mans wife is also presented in a very cold manner. An example of this is when she states that “they will rape me. they'll rape him... and eat us.." the abruptness of these statements emphasizes that she is bitter and has no remorse for the prospect of her son being raped and its as if she truly believes its inevitable.

Passing of time rest of the novel

Pages 29-49;

"Ate cold beans they'd cooked days ago"-(page 29) Telescoping through time.
"Late in the year"-(page 29) Telescoping through time.
"Where once he'd watched trout swaying in the current"- (page 30) References to time before (flashbacks)
"They set out again in the morning"-(page 30) Passage of time.
"He woke towards the morning"- (page 31) Passage of time.
"A few miles each day" (page 32) Telescoping through time.
"Dark of the invisible moon"-(page 32) Time expands.
"Within a year"- (page 33) Telescoping through time.
"Tomorrow came and went" (page 33) Telescoping through time.
"And then one evening he stopped and looked all about..."- (page 33) Time expands.
"Where he stood once with his own father in a winter long ago"-(page 34) References to a time before (flashbacks).
"In the morning they pressed on" -(page 34) Passage of time.
"They slogged all day..."- (page 35) Telescoping through time.
"It took four more days to come down from the snow..."-(page 37) Telescoping through time.
"Then it returned" -(page 38) Time expanding/a more abstract reference to time.
"They were all day reaching the river"-(page 38) Telescoping through time.
"It's getting colder every day"-(page 42) Time expanding.
"The tree had been there for years"-(page 45). More abstract reference to time.

Passage of the days:
"In the evening" pg 92
"In the morning" pg 93
"He woke in the morning" pg 95
"In the afternoon" pg 98
"Eternal blackness" pg 101
"Blackness... darkness..." pg 102
"When day broke" pg 103
"Within the hour" pg 110


Markers in the year:
"It could be November" pg 93
"Snow" - winter - pg 100


Telescoped time:
"In the evening... tomorrow... dark of night" pg 92 - all in one paragraph

"They might have covered three miles" pg 107
"They'd had no food and little sleep in five days" pg 111



Time expands:






Before (flash backs):
"He'd had this feeling before" pg 93
"He'd seen it all before" pg 94


Suspended time:
"The snow fell nor did it cease to fall" pg 101




Abstract references:



Other:
"In time to wink out forever" pg 93
"It takes a long time" pg 106
"In the early dawn at latest. Running the road in the night" pg 108
"We probably don't have much time" pg 109

Handling of time - Pg 113-133

Passage of days
‘In the night’ – p121
‘it was almost light enough to see’ – 123
‘The boy wouldn’t wake for hours’ – p124
‘He lay there a long time’ – p129
‘They spent the afternoon’ – p131
‘He wondered if it was even midnight’ – 133
‘By evening’ – p133

Telescoped time
‘...rose and set out.
He came across the barn...’ – p124
‘Afternoon... evening...light draw down over the world’ – in one paragraph p131
‘He was gone longer than he’d meant to be’ – gives an indication of time flying p130

Expanded narrative time
‘It was as long night as he could remember out of a great plenty of such nights...dawn was a long time coming...after a while it was day’ – gives a sense of expanded time p132

Before and flashbacks
‘Lingering odour of cows... and he realized they were extinct’ – p127
‘nothing in his memory anywhere of anything so good’ – p130

Abstract references
‘When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time.’ – p120
‘Phantoms not heard from in a thousand years rousing from their sleep’ – p122

Other
‘He would have ample time later to think about that’ – shows there are no deadlines/rushing p113
‘No time to look’ – contrasts to above quote, shows how we perceive time differs depending on our situation p117
‘stopping to rest each fifty counted steps’ – shows a new way of making references to time; whereas we might say every 5 minutes, the man uses steps as an indication of passing time p123


Handling of Time (Page 176-196)
‘When did you eat last?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You don’t remember.’
This shows the reader that there is no reason for people on the road to remember when they have eaten as they have no reason to plan meals. We only plan meals today because our day follows a set routine and we eat to keep up with this. On the road however, day and night have almost become one due to the ash and dust that falls, blocking out the sun. They have no concept of time and no reason for it so all they can really distinguish between is day and night so it is easy to imagine how a person could lose track of the days as they are all the same; as long as they are alive, they have no reason to remember when or what they eat.
‘How old are you?’
Similarly to the food, the old man is unable to truthfully recall his age as there is no reason for him to know it and no reminder of the date. Time and day are hypothetical things created by humans to gain a routine in life. However, mankind is dying out and everybody lives in the moment and has no cause to plan ahead, unless people meticulously count each day then it would be impossible to tell precisely when a year has passed and even if someone did work it out, what would be the point? It’s hardly like they’re going to celebrate. McCarthy uses the old man as an example to show that in the novel, the reader can never be certain as to how much time has passed, as the characters have no idea either.
‘How long have you been on the road?’ ‘I’ve always been on the road.’
Once again, in this section, McCarthy uses the dialogue between two characters to make the reader question the necessity of time; the fact that the man can’t actually remember how long he has been on the road for suggests that time is insignificant. The way that the man says he has always been on the road would suggest that time is standing still for these people. McCarthy handles time simply by putting a halt to it to show that it is just another thing on the road which is dying.
‘People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.’
This quote is suggesting that for all the care we take over time, it doesn’t care about us. It is telling the reader that all the worry we have over keeping to a schedule is ridiculous because time is a made up thing and isn’t going to alter itself to suit us. All the people who worried and invested plans in the future, ironically, weren’t actually as prepared for the next day as they could have been where as those who take each day as it comes are surviving still as they had no expectations and don’t need time to rule their lives.
‘In the morning the stood in the road’
McCarthy gives the reader absolutely no idea what time in the morning they are talking about to once again highlight the lack of importance time holds for people on the road. All they have to go by is the road; they walk along it when it is light enough and sleep when it isn’t, to them it is completely irrelevant what time it is as they have no goals in life other than to get to the sea as quickly as possible with no real aim when they get there, meaning that they can take as long as they need to.
‘In the early afternoon’McCarthy uses slightly more detail in this section. This could be because this is the first time phrase used since they left the old man alone in the road so the man and they boy are paying more attention to time as they are feeling guilty, wondering where the old man is and how long he has been left on his own for.
‘In the night he woke in the cold dark’
McCarthy uses this phrase to lead onto ‘coughing and he coughed till his chest was raw’ to fit in with the image that cold dark night quite often symbolise death, something that we know is imminent for the man but the way the author associates it with time suggests that his time is running out quickly.
‘You said it would last a few weeks’ ‘I know.’ ‘But it’s just been a few days.’
This back up the previous quote in suggesting that time is speeding up and things are going a lot quicker than the man and the boy expected them to.
‘He’d slept little in weeks.’
This shows McCarthy skipping through time to move the novel on but also showing the rapid declination of the man’s health, he gets several weeks worse in the few seconds it takes the reader to read it, to emphasize the point.

Handling of time pg 218-238
Page 226: 'They stayed in the house for four days eating and sleeping'. Time is contracted into a short paragraph.

Page 229: 'Long days.' Time has suddenly moved on, we cannot tell whether it is days or weeks.

Page 230: 'An hour later...' Chronological order.

Page 233: 'With dark they built a fire.' Shows the turning of day to night.

Page 235: 'In the morning...' Chronological order.

Page 219-224: Several pages devoted to a short time, less than half an hour. Every little detail is told.

Page 228-229: Time goes very fast, one second they are at the abandoned house and in the next paragraph they are standing in a supermarket. Then it skips to 'Long days' and we cannot tell whether is has been days or weeks or months.

Page 234: Flashback, 'he remembered walking once on such a night...' he is comparing his old beach memories to his experiences on the beach now. He is remembering a better time. This is significant because flashbacks occur throughout the novel as a running theme.


Pages 302-307

Reference to before-'Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains' page 306
Time seems to be suspended and more abstract view of time- 'On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming' page 307
Time is telescoped 'He cried for a long time' page 306
Time seems suspended 'You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow' page 307