Journeys in the Road

Journey is a prevalent theme choice for many writers, due to the potential to be manipulated in many forms. The alarmingly realistic novel of ‘The Road' contains journeys both physical and emotional as McCarthy utilises his literacy excellence to deviate away from the journey stereotypes involving clear aim and direction, focusing more on the motivation and meaning behind the journey. Conversely in Thomas Hardy’s 1913 poem collection, physical and mental journeys are explored as Hardy nostalgically returns to poignant points from his relationship with Emma in an attempt to console himself of her sudden death. Through Hardy’s journeys we feel his guilt as he blames himself for neglecting Emma during her deterioration. A similar emotion is achieved by Ian McEwan’s in his novel ‘Atonement’. The protagonist Briony tells her story through her journey of atonement as she spends the duration of the novel suffering for a mistake she made in her youth.

The personification of the sea is used as a metaphor of the mans life. He is reaching the end of his journey as he starts to weaken as showed by the "slow surf" suggesting he is losing his ability to proceed. He is close to breaking point as we are provided with the image of the surf as it "seethed" as all of his hard efforts on the journey start to appear futile. We can assume this is due to the realisation that the journey hasn't ended as he expected for example the sea not being blue. He starts to loose all his positivity and as this is what drove him to keep going he feels he now has "no life". His life was the journey and it is now over as he was holding on to reach the coast in the expectation of a better life, however he assumes if the sea is not blue what other disappointment lies