Cormac Mccarthy The Road Vs The Grail

The ability to view an author’s unpublished draft can be described as to viewing the author’s journey can also observe what message is trying to be displayed through the text. Upon observation of The Road and the unpublished draft “The Grail”, I have concluded that there are two key differences that create an concrete analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s progression of his work that show the mother scene shift from mortal anxiety to rationalization of the mother’s actions and reasons for her decisions.

The first key difference in between these two are, the amount of bullets that are still left. “You’ve got four more bullets in the gun and then what? You cant protect me.” (“The Grail”,3) Versus “ I should have done it a long time ago. When there were three bullets in the gun instead of two.” (The Road, 56) Here is where mortal anxiety comes into place. I have concluded that the need for the change of the amount of bullets to two instead of four is the lack of reasoning to why the mother see suicide as reasonable. With having four bullets,why would the mother need suicide as a outlet when there is enough ammunition need be for protection or insurance. Unless she has reached a mental capacity where her anxiety
“ It will be a test for you I suppose. About never lying to a child.” (“The Grail”,4) Versus “I cant help you.” (The Road) Here we can observe the mother’s rationalization to what she has decided to do. The message I received here is the detachment as well as acceptance of the mother’s decision in the Road, while in The Grail the mother’s message seemed more hesitant and portrays more of acknowledgment to her decision to commit suicide was a wrong decision which the father can use as a message to the boy. This is where I vividly see the mortal anxiety overtaking the mother’s thought than her actually rationalizing her decision since she cannot help because she sees no reasons to discuss