Symbolism in the novel - The road itself

‘The Road’ can be seen as a metaphor for the journey of life in that on the very first page of the novel we are given the metaphor that the man and boy are ‘pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast’ The reference to pilgrims suggests they are on a journey of moral significance, to revert themselves and humanity back to some sort of civilization after the apocalypse, perhaps.

This could also link to ‘The Road’ being a metaphor for the journey of birth to death as we encounter many characters who either die on the road, look as though it is inevitable that they will die on the road or are born on the road.  The road rat is killed on the road, the lightning struck man and thief almost certainly die on the road after the man and boy encounter them, the man dies on the road and the boy is born on the road.  The baby on the spit is born and dies on the road in its brief lifetime.

In American culture a road is often seen as a symbol of the pioneering spirit.  This can be seen in ‘The Road’ by the man and boy as they always have a goal to reach, the shore or to the south where they will find ‘the good guys’.

In literacy, journeys often contain challenges and dangers and in ‘The Road’ the man and boy face many challenges and dangers such as the road rat, the cellar, and ultimately the survival of the boy after the man dies.  It seems the more they continue their journey on the road the more dangers they encounter and the more challenging these dangers become, physically and emotionally for the man and boy.  For instance, when the thief steals the man and boy’s belongings it is emotionally challenging for the man to make a stand against the thief because the boy begs him not to, and in the end the man returns the thief’s belongings to the road because the boy was ‘crying’.

The road can also be seen as a metaphor for trials of humanity as the man and boy face many morally questioning situations as they travel along the road.  For instance, should the man shoot the road rat? The fact that the ‘bad guys’ have turned to cannibalism shows that they have descended from humanity and the man’s increasing hostile actions throughout the novel may be interpreted as him falling from humanity.  The boy on the other hand seems to represent hope and that humanity will rise again, even though the other characters on the road make this prospect bleak.  It can be also said that, even before the novel has begun humanity itself has disintegrated because of the apocalypse which is assumed to be a nuclear war because of all the ‘ash’ and burning.  

Road Rat Questions

·         On page 62 there is an element of foreshadow in that the boy plays with his toy truck and making ‘roads in the ash with a stick’  This foreshadows the coming events as the men who find the man and boy are travelling in a truck.  When the boy is playing with his truck it seems uncharacteristic of the novel to include a child enjoying himself to some extent, however when the man and boy are out in danger because of the truck full of men we see that this seemingly innocent behaviour was foreshadowing a darker event.  McCarthy may have done this to show that God was acting through the boy to warn the man of the dangers ahead.  This godly connection between God and the boy is shown at various points throughout the novel, so seeing as though this behaviour of the boy is uncharacteristic I think this is a possibility of why this foreshadowing is used.  One example of the boy being shown as a sign of religion is at the very start of the novel when the man states: ‘If he is not the word of God God never spoke.

·         The description of the men on pages 62-63 creates an intimidating and caveman-like image.  There is ‘One in a biohazard suit.  Stained and filthy.’  The men are ‘Slouching along with clubs in their hands, lengths of pipe. Coughing.’  Wearing a biohazard suit makes the man more intimidating as we don’t know his identity and there is always a fear of the unknown.  This character could also be shown to be mocking society as a biohazard suit is seen to protect you from dangerous substances, but nothing could protect anyone or thing from the apocalypse that occurred in the world in which the novel is set.  The men are described as ‘slouching with clubs’ with creates a Neanderthal image to show the diminishing society and almost a reverse in evolution to a time when humans were more animalistic and fighting for their survival against nature.

·         McCarthy uses a simile to describe the truck as ‘lumbering and creaking like a ship’ to give the impression that it is not running smoothly, but is more stuttering and jerking along, like a ship would on an ocean.  It could also foreshadow the man and boy getting to the shore and finding the boat, which was a disappointment.

·         On page 65 McCarthy describes the Road Rat in such detail because this is the first time there has been any interaction between the man and boy and another character.  Although we see the lightning struck man earlier, there is no interaction with him and also, he was not a threat to either the man or boy.  The Road Rat however is a threat and so the man, and us as readers take the Road Rat’s appearance in, almost sizing him up to find out the likelihood of the man prevailing against the Road Rat.

The road rat at this point also gives us a detailed insight to how humanity is diminishing and the world in the novel is so different to the one we know.  This is shown through the description of the Road Rat’s eyes; ‘Like and animal inside a skull looking out the eyeholes’ which shows that he is malnourished so that he is just skin and bones. This description also gives the reader a sense of vulnerability towards the Road Rat, even though he is supposed to be a threat to the man and boy as he is clearly weakened and struggling to survive, just like everyone else.  He Road Rat also makes us realise the differences between the novel world and ours because of the Road Rat’s tattoo which is a bird, ‘done by someone with an illformed notion of their appearance’ which is shocking to us as readers as to us, birds are so common worldwide that it is almost impossible to imagine someone who was unsure of how they look.

·         The character of the road rat is explicit in his speech with the man and gives the reader a sense that he doesn’t care much about anything.  This is shown when the Road Rat readily tells the man how much ‘Diesel fuel’ they have in the truck. If this was the man who was asked this he would not willingly give a straight answer.  This shows that the Road Rat isn’t concerned about other people and what they know about him or even the group he is going around with.  This may suggest that he has nothing to live for and so nothing to protect.  This explicit manner of the Road Rat also shows his lack of education.  The use of colloquial language such as ‘Ain’t no need’ shows the reader that education counts for next to nothing in this new world were survival is everything.  This portrayal of the Road Rat as having a limited vocabulary also seems to give the man some intellectual ammunition against Road Rat as he knows that he is outnumbered and buys time by keeping a conversation with the Road Rat.

The man is implicit and never tells the Road Rat much about himself or his son.  When the man tells the Road Rat why he won’t hear the gun shot, even though this isn’t an outright threat, it is implied through the shear detail which the man puts into his description creating a gruesome image.  In respond to the detailed explanation the man gives the Road Rat replies ‘Are you a doctor?’ to which the man simply responds ‘I’m not anything.’  This response creates a sense of mystery towards the man and gives the reader the impression that the man believes occupations are gone now so there is no need to discuss anyone’s past life, as they are gone.  The man also avoids giving the Road Rat any real answers that would allow him to know anything about the boy’s, or his past, present or future, as if protecting himself in case the Road Rat tries to find them again.

·         We learn many things about the man through his exchange with the Road Rat.  We learn of his extensive medical knowledge through his use of words such as ‘frontal lobe’ and ‘colliculus’  suggesting that he was highly educated and possibly from a medical background in the post-apocalyptic world.  When the Road Rat ‘dove and grabbed the boy’ the man is extremely quick to react as he ‘had already dropped to the ground...and fired from a two-handed position’ which shows the reader how the man is willing to take huge risks to save his son.  This fast response also shows that the man was confident in using the gun and his ability to aim as if the Road Rat had moved the man may have ended up killing his son.  His fast, instinctive reaction and accuracy of the shot suggests to the reader that the man has used this weapon before which makes the reader question the man’s morals and whether he really is a ‘good guy’.

·         ‘A single round left in the revolver.  You will not face the truth. You will not’ echoes the wife’s tone in the final conversation she had with the man before she killed herself.  This can be interpreted as the man hearing his wife’s voice in his head telling him this truth that he would rather not face.  She could either be mocking him here, making the man believe that it would have been in everyone’s favour to join the wife and kill himself and the boy when she did or it could be portrayed as her willing the man to carry on and not think about this truth.  Alternatively, this could be the man finding himself thinking like the wife in a negative way because he feels as though he has failed his son.  If anything happens to them now they will not both be able to die and also, the fact that there is one round left shows that the man has killed numerous times, letting his son down for this reason too.

·         Following the shooting the other men don’t chase after the man and the boy because they are only concerned for the survival of themselves, we can see this when the man and boy revisit the scene to find ‘the bones and the skin... A pool of guts’, there were also ‘No pieces of clothing’.  This shows that even though in life the Road Rat may have been the other men’s friend or at least their companion they have no shame when he is dead to eat him and take his clothes for themselves.  This appalling image shows that the other men have no respect for the Road Rat’s body, like we do when someone has died.  It shows how morals in the novel differ from those in our world and how the people in the novel act less and less civilized as the novel progresses and also shows that their desperation grows more and more extreme as they are not just eating people they don’t know, but eating those who were their friends.

·         It is not until page 77 that the man cleans the ‘gore’ and ‘dead man’s brains’ from the boys face even though he has kept him warm with blankets and fed him subsequent to the shooting.  This is because cleaning the boy is not his first priority as it is not life-threatening to the boy, however hunger and cold are, so they are the man’s priorities.  He waits until they have set up a safe camp and are well fed before cleaning the boy as only then are they safe from other dangers even if the boy is uncomfortable with this situation and would probably rather forget that he had just witnessed his father kill someone and was almost killed himself.

Reponse to the End in 25 words

The ending was cliché.  To fit in with the rest of the novel it should have ended on page 301 after the man died.

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

McCarthy lacks using emotional language throughout the novel to create a bitter and bleak atmosphere.  It also shows the characters distancing themselves from each other and the world around them and so protecting themselves from emotional hurt.  The lack of emotional language also creates this feeling in the reader, but as outsiders to the world created in the novel we feel the emotions that the characters cannot as we know they are purposely hiding them from each other.  One example of this is when the wife leaves.  Her tone seems bitter and nasty and she never once sounds remorseful or says goodbye.  At one point she states that her ‘heart was ripped out the night he was born’ referring to her son.  She also refuses to say goodbye to her son.  This leaves the reader upset as, if nothing else we feel sorry for the son.  The wife’s tone could be perceived as spiteful  but McCarthy shows that this tone was purposeful in that he described the ‘coldness’ of her exit as ‘her final gift’ which shows that she was being heartless to spare her husband’s feelings which makes it more emotional for the reader as it shows she could not show her true emotions in the final conversation she will ever have with her husband. 

One example of this is when the man and boy reach the shore and find that the sea is not blue.  Even though the man can see the ‘disappointment’ in the boy’s face all he does to comfort the boy id say ‘I’m sorry it’s not blue’ to which the boy simply replies ‘That’s okay’  In many conversations in the novel the boy simply replies with the word ‘okay’ which is ambiguous and shows little of the boy’s emotions.  These brief exchanges, such as the one by the shore make the narrative emotionally engaging even though the language is sparse because we wonder what the characters are really thinking and what they are holding back.

Lack of hyperbolic language highlights the extremity of the situation

McCarthy’s lack of hyperbolic language shows that the characters do not have time to over think or linger on any of the horrific situations they find themselves in.  In turn, we as readers are not allowed to think for a long time about individual events.  One example of this is when the man and boy find the baby on the spit.  The baby is simply described as ‘a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackened. Although this is a clearly disturbing image the language used is simple and blunt.  The tone created therefore is one of calm and fact, showing that scenes like this are the normal for the man and boy which shows how extreme their situation is.  The description is short and shows little emotion showing that because of their extreme situation there is no time to feel sorry for anyone of thing else as it won’t help them or the man and boy.

The lack of hyperbolic language also makes the world created in the novel seem monotone, which reflects the situation of the characters; repetitive and tedious.  One example of this is when the man shoots the road rat.  He ‘dropped to the ground and he swung with him and levelled the pistol and fired’.  The road rat then ‘lay with blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead’ and the boy later was ‘covered with gore and mute as a stone.’  The whole of this incident takes up one paragraph and is really informing the reader what happened instead of describing it to them.  There is no emotion presented in this extract and McCarthy doesn’t go into lots of detail even though this is one of the main action sequences in the novel.  The most vivid description in this extract is ‘blood bubbling from the hole in his forehead’.  This highlights the extremity of the situation that the man and boy are in because not only are we as readers not allowed to dwell on this event, like the characters also do not, but the way McCarthy presents it in a factual way; ‘fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet’ shows that this situation is no longer horrific or disturbing for the character of the man, just essential to keep him and his son alive.

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

Aspects of Narrative – P1-28

Beginnings

P1 – Begin the man and boy’s story straight away

P11 – Beginning of the story of the man’s childhood – ‘his uncle’s farm’

P24 – Explore the man’s childhood house

P17 – Beginning of the story of the man’s wife – ‘his pale bride’ ‘Pale’ here could represent that she is now dead

P28 – Refugees/other people’s story begins as they are described in the past tense – ‘In those first years’ this description of them ‘sitting in their rags’ contrasts to the people we encounter later in the novel that are more proactive, even if they are more barbaric.

Endings

P10 – End of man’s faith in God – ‘Damn you eternally’. There are references to God throughout the novel, but I think that the man uses God as a scapegoat for everything that has happened as a mechanism for staying sane, therefore he has lost his faith, but not his belief for the simple reason that he needs to blame someone for all the bad things that have happened so he doesn’t lose his sanity.

P20 – The end of humanity – ‘no sign of life’

P28 – End of time – ‘ever is no time at all’ there is an ending of time because the recording of time is no longer necessary in this new world were all that matters is surviving another day.

P28 – the man wonders if he would be able to end the boy’s life.

Characterisation

P4 – there is a strong bond between the man and boy which is present from the start.  This bond keeps the man strong and allows him to have the will to keep going. - ‘each the other’s world entire’ this shows the isolation of the characters and that all they have is each other.

P9 – there is a sense of loneliness and isolation within the characters through their conversation – ‘Okay what?

Nothing. Just Okay.

Go to sleep.

Okay.’

This simple conversation also gives the reader a sense of detachment between the characters due to the minimalistic choice of vocabulary and the way that they only say the essential and nothing more.

P10 – we see the internal suffering of the man through the way he talks to God; ‘will I see you at last?’

P28 – the characterisation of the refugees as having given up and simply waiting for death – ‘sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators.’

Settings

P1 – The setting of the entire novel is summed up in a metaphor on the first page; ‘Pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and cast among the inward parts of some granitic beast’  The Pilgrims are the man and boy and the granitic beast is the world.  The way that the pilgrims are described to have been ‘cast among the inward parts’ of the beast could show that the world has been turned inside out for the man and boy, in other words it is completely different and unrecognisable as the world which we live in.

P2 – the setting of the road is described as ‘Barren, silent, godless.’  This description gives us an insight to what kind of experience this novel will give the reader; a bleak and depressing one.  The use of the word ‘godless’ tells us that the man and boy will have hell-like experiences through the novel.

P4-5 – A gas station is described and from this description we see that this is a world which was once like ours, but has changed dramatically for reasons unknown to the reader.  This is shown through the way that the pumps were ‘standing with their hoses oddly still in place’.  This shows that the normal for us as readers has become abnormal for the characters.

P11 – When the man remembers his uncle’s farm everything is warm and colourful; ‘yellow leaves’ ‘manila rope’ this is a contrast to the world in which the man and boy live now and shows that the man’s memories taunt him.

P14 – The ‘blackness’ of the world around them at night is described.  – The word ‘blackness is repeated and ‘blackened is used.  It is also described as ‘impenetrable’ which shows that the darkness is absolute and also contrasts to the world we know because it is never totally dark outside.

P22 – the supermarket – the fact that the ‘softdrink machines’ had been raided but no-one had took the ‘coins everywhere in the ash’ shows that peoples priorities have changed in this new world and currency doesn’t matter anymore.

P24-26 – the man’s childhood house – ‘peeling wooden clapboards’, ‘rotted screening’, ‘pine panelling was gone’, ‘the mantle...that had held stockings forty years ago’, ‘damp plaster’ – these descriptions show that a long time has passed since anyone has lived here and the fact that the man is reminiscent of his childhood makes the scene more depressing as we get an insight to how this house used to be.

Destination

P2 – the destination of the man and boy is made clear from the start – ‘they were moving south’ this is the man and boy’s goal and as the novel progresses we as readers are always aware of this destination too.

P4 – the man and boy always return to the road throughout the novel and this habit starts at the very beginning of the novel – ‘An hour later they were on the road.’

Journey

P1 – the idea of a journey is present from the start when McCarthy likens the man and boy to ‘pilgrims’.

P1-28 – The man and boy are constantly on a journey through the novel and this is clear from the opening as even in this short section of the novel the setting is constantly changing and even when the man and boy reach a house or similar they continue to move and explore the house, only stopping at night for sleep.  This gives an impression of endless journey.

Time

P1 – the first reference to time is mentioned in the first paragraph of the novel – ‘the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease’ to show that time is endless and morphing into one continuous thread with no definitions such as hours or minutes.

P10 – Time through the novel is often split into day and night - ‘he woke before dawn and watched the gray day break’ this shows that unlike us the people of this world use natural time markers, like the rising and setting of the sun to mark time of day, which is more primal and so shows that the people in the novel have had to revert to methods used by our distant ancestors as the desolate and destroyed world does not accommodate for modern ways of living.

Time passage in this section, like in the rest of the novel is not even.  Where one paragraph can deal with a single moment in time, the next can move through a few days.  This uneven passage of time shows the uneven way which the man and boy live.  The novel also features no chapters which shows that time stands still for no-one and the man and boys lives flow and never stop, just like the novel.

Extract from ‘The Constant Tin Soldier’ in the style of McCarthy

The little boy ran into the street to look for the tin soldier but could not find him.  He returned inside.   It started to rain.  When the downpour stopped two boys noticed the tin soldier and decided to make him a boat.  They made it out of newspaper and placed the tin solder inside.  The tin soldier sailed down the gutter.  His boat went into a drain under the road and he was consumed by darkness. 

What would the darkness matter if the ballerina were with me now? Thought the tin soldier.  He stood firm and held his musket tightly.  His boat sailed past a rat.  Travelling fast now.  Soon he could see daylight in the distance and could hear the sound of rushing water ahead.  The tin soldier fell deep into a canal and the boat began to disintegrate.  Paper mush. The tin soldier began to sink and was engulfed by a fish.    

It was darker now. Dark and damp.  The tin soldier lay still.  The smell was hideous.  He did not know how long he lay like this.  Some time later something sharp flashed through the fish.  Fresh air and daylight.  He welcomed them like old friends.

Look! It’s the tin soldier! Someone exclaimed.  They washed the tin soldier and took him upstairs.  He found himself in the same room he had been in before.  He stood on his one leg and looked around.  The same children.  The same toys.  His brother soldiers.  The ballerina.  Everything was just as he left it.  As if he never left.  He looked at the ballerina and she looked at him.  They did not speak. 

One of the children picked up the tin soldier and threw him into the fire.  No-one knew why.  The tin soldier stood among the coals.  He could see the ballerina through the flames.  She was watching him.  The tin soldier felt himself melting.  He shouldered his musket and stood firm.  A gust of wind flickered the flames and the ballerina was blown into fire beside the tin soldier.  For a second they were together.  In a burst of flames she was gone.  The soldier stood firm until he had melted into a solid lump.  The next morning the maid cleaned out the ashes and found what remained of the tin soldier.  A little tin heart.