Literature Analysis

The Road by Cormac McCarthy


1) The Road is a story about the remnants of a family struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic society. Besides the obvious struggles presented in the form of a lack of food and necessary supplies, they also come across personal conflicts. The father puts his son above all other concerns and occupations in the desolate wasteland and his son looks towards him as a sign of comfort and for a sense of familiarity in this new found life. Throughout the course of the novel, not only do they encounter other dangerous wasteland scavengers, but total disaster is revealed through the declining health state of the father. At the end of the story, the father dies in the middle of the road and the son is picked up by the member of another band of survivors.


2) The theme of the story is hope(lessness) and perseverance. Throughout the story their goal is to reach the coast, the coast is a supposed sanctuary (or at least it seems as so due to their current living conditions). Although they encounter many problematic situations, they persevere through the worst of all possible situations and try to remain honest and moral based. Although their efforts don't end as planned, the fathers perseverance placed his son is caring hands after his own death.


3)The tone of the story is depressing. It shows no hope for the near, or distant, future throughout most of the story. This is portrayed since the beginning of the story.
"When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." This quote sets the gloomy atmosphere that takes lace throughout the story. 
"Can I ask you something? he said.
Yes. Of course.
Are we going to die?
Sometime. Not now." This quote shows the brutal truth and reality that the father had to demonstrate to his son. 

"You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else." This shows the depression that is bound to set into people after spending so much time being alone. 

4) McCarthy's use of diction, syntax, imagery, setting, and Pathos help reveal his theme of hopelessness and bleakness, along with revealing the tone. "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world..." The imagery in this quote really illustrates the darkness and hopelessness that the broken family has set out for them. 

"He walked out into the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of an intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running." The diction and syntax in this passage also add to the atmosphere by the use of words like 'gray light', 'cold relentless', and 'Darkness implacable'. 

"He walked out into the road and stood. The silence. The salitter drying from the earth. The mudstained shapes of floating cities burned to the waterline. At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering." The setting presented in this passage adds to the hopelessness and bleakness because of the way it describes their path. McCarthy uses dark yet descriptive words like 'mudstsained', 'silence', and 'moldering.' 

"What would you do if I died? 

If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you. 

Okay." 

This passage uses Pathos to make the reader relate to the feelings that the father has toward his son and how strong the love that he has for him is.