The Cellar (pg 116-117)

He started down the rough wooden steps. He ducked his head and then flicked the lighter and swung the flame out over darkness like an offering. Coldness and damp. An ungodly stench. The boy clutched at his coat. He could see part of a stone wall. Clay floor. An old mattress darkly stained. He crouched and stepped down again and held out the light. Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous. Jesus, he whispered. Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us. Christ, he said. Oh Christ. He turned and grabbed the boy. Hurry, he said. Hurry. He'd dropped the lighter. No time to look. He pushed the boy up the stairs. Please, he called. Please. Hurry. For God's sake hurry. He shoved the boy though the hatch and send him sprawling. He stood and got hold of the door and swung it over and let it slam down and he turned to grab the boy but the boy had gotten up and was doing his little dance of terror. 

The beginning of this extracts starts with short sentences because the man's eyes have not yet adjusted to the dark and to reflect this, McCarthy has mirrored what little the man can see with his limited descriptions, however as he spends longer in the blackness his description of what he can see becomes broader as his eyes have adjusted to the light. An advantage of describing things one by one near the beginning allows the reader to truly understand the morbid and bleak conditions of the cellar which they are in and allows them to picture the situation in deeper detail.


The sentences become longer during the middle as they reflect the rushed and urgent mentality of the man to try and escape and get to safety. Combined with the monosyllabic words, this increases the pace. He repeats words such as 'hurry' to emphasise their danger and his inability to properly punctuate sentences and deter from his usual shorter sentences reflects his worry and panic, causing him not to be able to speak properly because he is overwhelmed with fear. The long sentence near the end of the extract also reinforces his panic and builds tension because he keeps listing actions with the word 'and' rather than creating new sentences, showing he is unable to speak calmly and highlights their worries.


The people in the cellar speak to the man, saying "Help us, they whispered. Please help us". The words McCarthy has chosen create a soft sound which reflects how a whisper may be said. This use of sibilance stresses the vulnerability of the people in the cellar and makes them appear weak and small as the sound is very feminine and helpless. The way the man responds by leaving them alone creates a detachment from the characters for the reader because they are so inhumane and thoughtless. The entire event is described very detachedly and has no long term effect on the man and the boy, as these kind of events happen often to them, it is seen as an every day occurrence and nothing out of the ordinary, showing what kind of inhumane world they have been living in if this kind of treatment to people is just overlooked without a second thought.


The passage reminds me of a play script and it feels as if there is a narrator present as it is told in third person. The only actions they have which are described are those which seem necessary to understand the story, much like stage directions are in a script to help the director place the people, for example "the boy clutched at his coat" sounds like an instruction for an actor rather than a piece of literature because the statement is so concise.