Cormac Mccarthy Title The Road

Jose Sanchez
AP English P.1
3 October 2014
Author: Cormac McCarthy Title: The Road
Date published: September 26, 2006
Title
• The title of the novel, The Road, corresponds with the road that the main characters travel on when they’re attempting to reach the ocean coast. It is used as their guide to the coast and there was no specification on the name of road.
Author
• Cormac McCarthy was born on July 20, 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the third of six children. McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee but left in order to join the U.S. Air Force. He married a total of three times. Some of his other works include The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, and No Country for Old Men. In 2006, The Road
won the Pulitzer Prize for literature and the novel was chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. Also the book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. “CormacMcCarthy.com” CormacMcCarthy.com. Web. 03 Oct. 2014
• The genres which The Road falls under are as follow: Science fiction, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic fiction, and horror.
• In 2006, the period of publication, there was a vast amount of historical information. It ranged from Google purchasing YouTube for $ 1.6 billion to Saddam Hussein being sentenced to death by the Iraqi court. In addition, historical information like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arriving at mars, five school girls are murdered in a shooting, and the Madrid Barajas International Airport being bombed. "Historical Events for Year 2006 HistoryOrb.com." HistoryOrb.com. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.
Setting
• The story takes place in post-apocalyptic earth, but the specific location is not mentioned. McCarthy describes the landscape as “Barren, silent, godless.”(McCarthy 4) Dense ash looms in the air causing the surroundings to be stripped of color. The ash is so dense that the sun has been blocked “like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world” and has caused all burned vegetation to remain in their dead condition. There was no specification of the time, but the story commenced with the onset of winter.
• McCarthy alternates between two settings throughout the story. From traveling on the road to excursions away from it. The excursions included gas stations, houses, and other buildings. Reason for two alternative settings was so the unnamed protagonists could seek any available resources to aid them in their journey. Items like food, clothing, oil, and shelter.
• The story is told in over a period time of a season. McCarthy is vague on specific details of actual time in the story, but the story revolves around winter season. Throughout the novel McCarthy mentions the passing of time through days or weeks. Since it’s based on the winter season, the story is roughly told in a period of three to four months.
• The Road could certainly be told in a different setting like a different planet or 200 years in the future. Reason for this is because of the universal plot the story is based on. An apocalyptic event could occur on a different planet or in the future and cause the species inhabiting the location to wander for survival. A different setting could manipulate the story with how a species could react based on how advance the civilization is. For example, if the story took place 200 years in the future, humans could be better adapted for such an event if it were to occur. There could be greater protection against an apocalyptic event. A recovery state could be issued preventing further devastation of their home, thus not allowing the situation to escalate to the point of nothingness like in The Road.
Plot
• There are two inciting incidents or events that were brought upon the unnamed protagonists where their lives changed from their norm to accommodate to the novel’s plot.
The first one was prior to the novel when the catastrophe first commenced. The catastrophe was the spark for the father to seek the safety of his son. It left behind a barren wasteland causing him to enter a survival instinct to keep his son alive and away from the cannibals that came to be. “On the far side of the river valley the road passed through a stark black burn. Charred and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side.” (McCarthy 8) The second inciting incident was also a result of the unknown devastating event. The man’s wife couldn’t proceed with life of having to constantly be surviving. So she made the decision of committing suicide, but beforehand she told her husband, “Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen.” (McCarthy 56) With his killing herself, it prompted the man to become his son’s guardian angel. Everything which she had said he sought to prevent it and keep the boy
alive.
• McCarthy used the boy’s dream to foreshadow his father’s death from illness. “I was dreaming but you didn’t wake up.”(McCarthy 156) I was flabbergasted that McCarthy would kill off the only source of safety the boy had. The boy depended on his father for everything from shelter, to food, and learning how to “carry the fire.” Further foreshadowing was given when the boy was waken up by his father coughing up blood.
• I could imagine the story happening to anyone I know. Reason for this is because of the realism of the possibility of a catastrophe striking our homeland. All that would be required after the devastating event would be a fighting spirit of survival. With possibilities of nuclear wars, it is very much possibly of such a story happening to person I know.
Characters
•

Style
Theme
• Parental love
• Good versus evil
• Survival
Quotes
1.
“Just remember the things you put into your head are there forever he said… You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (McCarthy 12)
2. “The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality.” (McCarthy75)
3. “You have to carry the fire.
I don’t know how to. Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It’s inside of you. It was always there. I can see.” (McCarthy278)
The significance of this quote lies with the moment in the story at which it is said and its figurative interpretation. This conversation is held between the dying main character, Papa, and his son. He is no longer able to continue illustrating to his son that they don’t resort to any form of evilness to survive and they never stoop to barbaric ways. So he tells the boy to carry the symbolic fire that he possesses within himself. The fire represents human kindness, beliefs, and morals which the man wants the boy to retain as a
human.