The Road Analysis

Cormac McCarthy in his fictional novel “The Road” uses the death of the protagonist in order to create a terse tone that exemplifies the changing nature of time, how the past is left behind and the future becomes the present. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that is already very different from the present today. Death and starvation is a constant factor, and the protagonist (whose name isn’t revealed) dwells a lot in the past. Upon passing by the house he used to live in, the protagonist goes in despite his son’s cries, “This is where we used to have Christmas when I was a boy.”(26) In order to escape the ordeal of the post-apocalyptic world he finds solace in memories of a better time, something his son doesn’t have. These memories are a constant occurrence as the story progresses, with them getting bitterer as time goes on, at one point the protagonist even remembers the day his wife left, “We’re survivors he told her across the flame of the lamp. Survivors? She said. Yes.” (55) By focusing on these memories the man is unable to let the past go, instead dredging it up in a time where it no longer matters, a time where all that matters is surviving. This holds him back from being able to fully accept the present, and causes him to have a bleak outlook on the present. His son on the other hand has no recollection of a time before this world, “Sometimes the child would ask him questions about the world that for him was not even a memory.” (54) McCarthy does this to present the characters of symbols of sort, the man a relic of the past, constantly dwelling in it, and the son a child of the present. Unlike his father the son only focuses on the world around him, and most of the time is able to adapt quickly because of it, he knows nothing of the world of the past. This creates a greater impact with the death of the man later in the book, because with him dies the memories and the past. It is McCarthy’s way of saying that everything has their due time and precedence, that nothing lasts forever, and time rolls on.

Welcome to my blog everyone (: Over the course of the next few weeks I will be updating you on my progress through the novel The Road. I hope you stay with me and enjoy my blog.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is for academic purposes in which I will post on the novel The Road.