Other symbols and metaphors in The Road

Water, cleaning and washing - Water being used throughout the road could represent their attempts to cleanse themselves of their sins and the bad things that have happened to them to renew themselves and repent for their previous actions. They are constantly looking for water in the novel, on the surface this would be to drink, however it could be their quest to repent for their sins as the real reason they want to find the water. The goal to reach the shore also involves water, hinting throughout the novel that the theme of cleansing oneself is important to them.

The mountain -

The sea - The sea is what the boy and the man are aiming to reach throughout the whole novel. When they reach the shore, it feels calmer and a lot more serene than the rest of the novel where they are travelling, suggesting hope for the future as they are able to find a place that has no been ruined by the 'bad guys'. The sea is able to travel everywhere, as water is not confined to just one part of the world, presenting the idea of travelling to better places where there would be hope.

The colour grey - Many things described in the novel are grey, suggesting the world is very dull, bleak and colourless. There is no hope left as everything has reduced down to shades of black and white and is very minimilistic.


Ash -

Fire - Fire is a very big symbol in the road as it represents the hope which the boy carries. This could also mean passing the fire on to the next generations of the human race, as the man passes the fire onto the boy to continue the survival of humanity. Irony is also present with the theme of fire as it is also the reason for so much of the devastation in the world now, it destroyed many things and people but is seen as hope. Realistically, fire is also used for cooking which helps them survive physically along with providing them with the necessary strength to continue searching and not give up mentally.

Sight, sightlessness -

Seeds - Seeds represent the birth of something new and a new beginning, hope for the future that something better will emerge from their disaster.

Music/musical instruments -

Animal imagery -

Religious imagery - 

The Coca Cola can - The can of Coca Cola is symbolic of the fact they are in America. It is a commercial product and the one the man and the boy find could be the last one in the world, being significant of the idea that the world is being stripped down to the neccesities which are vital and the old way of life with luxurious items has come to an end. The boy and the man both find enjoyment in the Coca Cola, showing different generations can appreciate the drink but brings up the idea that the next generation from them will grow up having no recollection of it due to the apocalypse.

The importance of 'the road' in the novel

• The road represents adventure, as they come across many obstacles along their journey. It includes fights, strange creatures, monsters, new places and the need to camp and sleep along the side of the road. A sense of adventure and overcoming things is given by them never leaving the road and facing what is thrown at them.
• It also symbolises life itself, the fact that they cannot get off the road because they are still alive. There is only one destination as it could be seen as their personal road, there is only one route which they have chosen so they are unable to leave the road and mentally are constantly travelling it throughout their lives. Their unchangable path is solely for them as the 'good guys'.
• Roads typically have no ending, they connect to other roads which presents the idea of hope for the boy at the end of the novel. This suggests there is hope left for humanity as the boy continues travelling along his metaphorical 'road', his life, to find a better place.
• The man leaves the wife's photo on the road, symbolically ending her own journey so he is able to get on with his. He leaves his past life behind them where they have travelled on the road to get on with his new life because the past is no longer relevant and dwelling on it will do them no good.
• The road could also represent the man's mental state throughout the novel, as it is desolate and full of danger, much like the man's loneliness and pessimism which follows them throughout the book.
• Abandoning the shopping cart shows the man giving up material possessions and accepting he has to revert back to simpler ways of living, he leaves a lot of things on the road he no longer wishes to bring on his new journey because the road is a reminder of where they have come from.

The Road Rat

What element of foreshadowing is employed in this section and why?

What does the description of the men tell us about them?
The men are described as "stained and filthy", "slouching along with clubs in their hands" and "coughing". These descriptions present the idea that the men are violent and ill and therefore desperate for any of the necessities to survive. The idea that they are subhuman is hinted at as they are stained and filthy, therefore unable to clean and care for themselves, giving the reader the impression that humanity is deteriorating.

McCarthy uses a simile when describing the truck "lumbering and creaking like a ship". Why does he do this?

Why does McCarthy describe the Road Rat in such detail?
Although the Road Rat only makes a brief appearance in the novel, he is vitally important to one of the major themes of the novel, the idea of what is good and what is bad. The vivid, gruesome imagery deployed by McCarthy reinforces what a disgusting character the Road Rat is, with phrases such as "eyes collared in cups of grime and deeply suck", hinting at the possibility he is dying as he has sunken eyes. His knife is mentioned to reinforce the violence and danger the men carry but describing the men in such a macabre way make the man's action when he kills him appear much worse. The man's position as the 'good guy' is turned around, making him a 'bad guy' when he shoots the Road Rat, but by knowing what bad people the Road Rat and his men are, the man comes across as even worse than them for killing them.

Why is the Road Rat's character so explicit whilst the man is so implicit?
The more we know about the Road Rat and the less about the man allows us to make our own assumptions about the man from his responses to the Road Rat. The man has been preaching to the boy that they are the 'good guys', but as soon as the man's actions are revealed we begin to doubt his morals and whether or not he is just as bad as everybody else.

What do we learn about the man through his exchanges with the Road Rat?
The man has a vast medical knowledge beyond most people's, using words such as "frontal lobe", "colliculus" and "temporal gyrus", suggesting he had came from a medical background prior to the new apocalyptic world. He shows his instinctive need to protect his son by quickly reacting to when the Road Rat holds up his knife and "grabbed the boy and rolled and came up holding him against his chest with the knife at his throat" as the man "fired from a two-handed position" and killed him. His prompt response shows his fear of the boy dying and his accuracy suggests he has had experience with guns in the past. He does not have to think about whether it is morally right or wrong to shoot the Road Rat because for him, killing anyone who puts his son in danger is the right choice.

"A single round left in the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not." Who is the man echoing here? How do you believe these words are uttered?
I believe the realisation that they only have one bullet left would have been a horrific discovery for the man because there is now no room left for failure, they have to succeed now to get to the South as there is no way to kill themselves if they fail. The man echoes his wife here as she was determined to make him realise how hopeless their attempts were and to make them "face the truth" but the man is unwilling to accept that she was right as he feels remorse that she gave up on them.

Why don't the other men chase after the boy and the man following the shooting?
When the man returns to see where the men went, he finds "dried blood dark in the leaves", bones and "a pool of guts", suggesting that the men feared the man's ability to kill one of them and ate the Road Rat's body before quickly moving on to avoid the same fate happening to one of them. They probably viewed themselves as the 'bad guys' so for one of them to be defeated would worry them that something else, worse than them, was out there.

It is not until page 77 that the man finally clears the "gore and "dead man's brains" from the boys face. Why?
There is irony here between the cannibals in the truck and the boy and the man, as the cannibals ate the remains of the man's body to stay alive but the man washed them away from his face, leaving them and not using them for any benefit to themselves. He redeems part of his 'good guy' façade by doing this as they try and get rid of the reminders of the bad things that happen to them to start afresh.

My Response to the Ending

I felt the ending of The Road was superb; it provided closure for the man and hope for the boy. He found the good guys.

"Lack of hyperbolic language highlights the extremity of the situation."


The lack of hyperbolic language suggests there is no divide between the ordinary day to day activities which they carry out and the events which we as the reader would consider 'extreme.' For the man and the boy, every single day is extreme because they never know where their next meal or resources will come from which is just as big a problem as their encounters with the dead corpses and the 'bad guys'. The man's language is limited and expressionless now because he has no need to exaggerate because if anything he would wish their situation was less extreme. Their is no need for words for exaggeration because not much could be worse than telling the truth of how awful their lives have become. His plain and simple language mimics the minimalistic and primal lifestyle they have had to adapt to and the brutality of the events seem incredibly real due to the flat, expressionless way they are told, using familiar daily objects we associate with to make the story 'real' but with a negative twist. 


The man and the boy must constantly continue travelling to reach the South where they believe it is better, so not involving hyperbolic language they are spurring the reader on to continue travelling with them, as they leave themselves no time to wallow in their own misery as they reflect on their extreme situation. Everything is told in a monotonous tone, showing they just have to take everything as it comes and cannot let whatever happens affect them in a great way, as it is nothing they can control. Most of the situations they face will only continue to haunt them if they allow them to so by not dwelling on the events it will leave a smaller impact, hinted by the quote "you forget what you want to remember and remember what you want to forget". Attempting to forget the events will only make them more prominent so disregarding them as normal situations makes it easier for them to detach themselves from the cruelty of the new world.


They do not wish to spend time feeling sorry for themselves and realise they have no other option than to keep doing, ruling out giving up. If one bad thing happens to them, they do not give up completely but rather they keep trying in hope of finding a better place. By not letting the events get to them it is easier to do this as their hope is not dwindled by their past experiences. Exaggerated language does make the reader empathise with the characters, but it is not necessary in The Road because the events which happen to them are much worse than anything we as readers could imagine happening to us. Their is no need to provoke sympathy from the reader because it is assumed they will automatically empathise with the characters because of the cruelness of their situation anyway. McCarthy clearly does not want the reader to become too attached to the characters though, so to combat this they are shown as very emotionless themselves and are difficult to become attached to as they are such empty people from their traumas. 


"Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more emotionally engaging."


Emotional language seems to be avoided in The Road to show detachment from the characters to each other and with the reader. Lessening the emotional attachments they share with each other makes the events which follow seem much less painful and upsetting for the man and the boy when they can pretend they do not feel emotions. For example, the man's wife leaving him on page 57 appears to be an extremely cruel and selfish act for her to do, especially the way she tells him, using phrases such as 'I don't care', however if she was more emotional and caring, it would be much more difficult for the man and the boy to move on and keep wishing she was with them. Detaching herself from the situation allows them to accept that she has gone without feeling so much regret and hurting them more than if they felt she should still be with them. 


Simple phrases in The Road have much deeper meanings than what is initially read so the book manages to engage the reader to try and work out what they truly mean, for example the phrase 'tolling silence' is used to personify the earth to show the deafening silence of death inhabiting the world, creating an eerie atmosphere and urges the reader to continue to discover more about the novel. The quote "Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?" brings the idea of the past and present together, with the 'never to be' suggesting false hopes of what will never happen. The man wishes to forget what 'never was', such as his wife and the old memories of his past life as he realised they are 'never to be' again and he cannot dwell on them any longer. This is reflected by him placing down his belongings in the middle of the road and walking away as they are no longer a part of him anymore. Dwelling on the 'never to be' and 'what never was' distracts him from being able to focus on the present which is essential to ensure they have a chance of survival. The lack of emotional language on the surface provides a pathway to his inner emotions which mean much more than what he could express with words. 


Perhaps another reason emotional language is not used is because the man simply has no emotion left to express his feelings. 'On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world' could suggest the good men have disappeared and left with his emotions and feelings and he is left as a bad man who does not deserve to have emotions because he is no longer good. His lack of emotions reflect his bleak outlook on life and they were torn away from him the moment his wife left him. I believe his wife had a huge impact on the way he now views the world because she 'cheated' on him with death and death now surrounds and engulfs them. His memories of her are fond and provide a contrast to the dull, harshness of their current world, hinting that when she left she took part of him with her.


We are engaged with his lack of emotional language because we as the reader constantly use emotional language. We are not accustomed to his expressionless vocabulary and are encouraged to try and understand him by wanting to figure out why he is the way he is. The man and his situation are alien to us and our desire to understand different people engages the reader with the book to see how he can possibly lack so much emotion.

The Handling of Time 92-112

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

Jack and the Beanstalk

There it stood. Towering over the house stood a huge green tunnel leading to the heavens. The empty sky was cloudy and emotionless. Vines and leaves engulfed the sculpture. Contorted around it's body. The boy rose from his bed. Remembering being sent there the previous night. A punishment for his worthless trade. The beans. Sprawling around it's cylindrical trunk lay the stems. He ran outside. Towards it. Admiring it's height and complexity. Fascinated. 
Placing his hand on it's branch he hauled himself up onto the vine. Crawling eagerly up to the clouds obscuring the view above. He paused. Stared down at the life he'd just left. He must have covered 2 miles by now. 


He was beginning to feel weary when he caught a glimpse of something through the mist. Turrets. A drawbridge. Fortified walls. Focussing his eyes harder on the shapes made obvious he had reached a castle. He stepped down from his ladder. Edged further towards the magnificent structure. He had no way of knowing what would be inside but he'd come too far to turn back now. After reaching the drawbridge he stood for a moment. Still. Calculating his next move. Three minutes passed. The boy was deep in thought. Then it lowered. He walked straight into the castle but was met by a figure.


She stood tall and proud. Dwarfing the boy. She must have been ten times his height. Eleven. Twelve. The boy's stomach rumbled.
Good morning, she said. Can I help you?
Where is this?
This castle belongs to me and my husband.
Could you spare any food?
The woman looked nervously behind her then back at the boy.
Yes, she said. If you're quiet.


She led the boy into a smaller room. She busied herself preparing something to vanquish the flames of hunger which plagued his stomach. Bread. Butter. Ham. Luxuries he didn't get back home with his widowed mother. He thought of her. Was this selfish of him to have left? His thoughts were disrupted. The sound of a deafening bellow. 
Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman.

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.

Theft of Their Belongings

This episode evokes a sense of panic in the reader because everything which they have been working towards has just been stolen away from them again, just as you are beginning to think there is a chance there could be hope.
The idea of what is 'good' or 'bad' is highlighted again in this episode, as the boy asks the man "are we going to kill them?" to which he replies "I don't know", showing that because they are a threat to their way of life, they may have to be the 'bad guys' again to kill them to ensure their survival, or it will be them who get killed.
The way the man responds to meeting the thief is very chilling and frightening, as he threatens him with "I'm going to blow your brains out", showing that he is serious about getting their items back because they have worked so hard to get this far.
The boy pleads to the man "please don't kill the man", evoking sympathy and showing his naivety again as he does not yet see how dangerous another human being could possibly be to them. The man forcing the thief to take his clothes off is somewhat sadistic as he feels the need to punish the man for stealing their things, however the man has taken things from other people and places before, such as food and gas, so he is somewhat hypocritical because in the same situation the man would probably have acted the same way.
He tries to teach the thief a lesson by comparing what he has done to him to what the thief had done to them, taking all their possessions, showing that in the world they now live in, you really do have to fend for yourself and not care about anybody else.
I think this is a key episode because it reinforces how the theme of good and bad is not set in stone, because the thief was bad for stealing their things but the man responded in an equally as bad way, where he previously claimed that they were the good guys. It shows how the man is able to be extremely harsh if the situation arose, whereas the boy is still affected by the horror of it all and seems amazed that he is able to do such a cruel thing to the thief.
The last line of the episode is spoken by the boy in relation to the question he asked earlier about whether they would kill him or not, the boy claims "but we did kill him", showing that their actions have indirectly impacted on the man's life, because without his clothes and possessions he has no way of surviving, making their actions selfish as they have now murdered a human being, showing that all of their morals have gone out the window in their desperation to stay alive.

Getting to the Shore

This episode provides some hope for the reader as the entire duration of the book is spent trying to get closer and reach the coast, however when they eventually get there it is a bit of a let down as there is no exciting climax when they arrive, much like the rest of the book. I think McCarthy is doing this to portray how bleak their situation is that not even the sign of the coast can give them hope and motivation anymore. The fact that there is no stopping on their journey and even after they have got to the coast could present the road as a metaphor for their journey through life, because it never stops and can be unexpected and surprising. 
The episode gives us a sense of time passing without their actions being documented, with the use of shorter paragraphs and phrases such as 'long days' and 'two days later', showing a long time has passed in a few pages. It is unnecessary to document what they are doing during this time as everything they do is repetitive and monotonous so the only parts described are those of importance.
The man and the boy barely speak during this time, but the man apologises for the disappointment on the boys face when he sees the ocean is not blue, showing he feels responsible for what he thinks he should have seen and blames himself for everything where the boy is involved, feeling guilty for all the strain their relationship has held.
The way McCarthy describes their actions is list-like and very precise, he also continues to not use punctuation and other grammatical structures. By doing this, the text is stripped of anything it has, very much like how the boy and the man are alone without any of their possessions and makes it simpler to read.
This is a key episode because the novel is centred around getting to the coast and this is the event where they actually get there. Everything they have been working towards is now within their reach.