The Road

Imagine a land in which you would spend your days avoiding cannibals. Visualize wandering threw towns digging threw trash cans, and plundering houses for scrapes of half eaten, rancid food. Picture a place where the days are grey, the nights are frozen, and the sky is never blue. This is “The Road.”

“The Road” is another book in the horror genre from the award winning creator of “No County for Old Men.” Cormac McCarthy uses his previous knowledge in the horror genre to put out a brilliantly articulated post apocalyptic story about a man and a boy who wander a path, known as the road, as they strive to survive one day at a time.

The book is centered on two main characters. A boy and his father. The father is portrayed as the protector of the boy. He carries many responsibilities which include making sure the boy stays safe, gathering food, and making a fire, when it won’t be seen, to keep the two of them from freezing to death. The boy is portrayed as a dependent of the man who doesn’t fully comprehend the nature of there situation. The dialogue between the two of them is very plain consisting of very basic sentences, putting greater emphasis on there discouraged state and there impending situation.
“And we’re still going south?”
“Yes”
“So we’ll be warm”
“Yes”
“Okay”

The book begins as the man awakes a reaches out to check on the boy lying beside him. McCarthy quickly delivers the tone by saying, “He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none.” Using dark and depressing words he then explains that the man and the boy are moving a along a path which is known as the Road. The carry knapsacks over there shoulders at all times in case they have to run, keeping the rest of there earthy belongings in a cart which the push with along the path. Throughout the story the encounter many disturbing visuals as they travel the path in order to reach the coast.

McCarthy is able to deliver a deliberate message about the tone using a mixture of vivid language and beautifully articulated sentence structure. “With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless.” McCarthy is clever in allowing the reader to see important details without having to state them.