Question 5 (post 4)

5. McCarthy's novel is a stark contrast to Kerouac's in terms of language. While Kerouac is lyrical, loud, and colorful, McCarthy's style is dark and sparse. How does McCarthy's style lend to the story itself? Cite text for support. Who is his audience? How can you tell?

McCarthy’s dark and brief language lends itself perfectly to the style and storyline of the novel. The Road follows a father and son making their way through the ravaged countryside of the U.S. in effort to reach the coastline. On their journey they are thrown into a number of gruesome situations where the travelers are forced to make tough decisions.

As I read through The Road I was shocked by how spares the language and especially the conversations were. The main chunk of dialogue in the novel was between the father and the son. Most of these conversations only contained a few short sentences. One conversation that exemplifies this is when the father is telling his son about his friends before the apocalypse: “Do you remember them?/ Yes. I remember them./ What happened to them?/ They died. All of them?/ Yes. All of them./ Do you miss them?/ Yes. I do”(pg. 60-61). Many of the sentences here only contain a single word.

This sparse use of language and particularly dialogue adds a lot of depth to the novel. It almost feels as if the father and the son want to save every breath they can and do not want to waste as little energy as possible. This battle with life and the human bodies limitations is fitting as the father and son spend much of their time trying to find food and survive.

The most prevalent theme of The Road is love. The strength of love between the father and the son seems to be the only fiber holding them from complete despair. McCarthy’s sparse use of language adds to the disparity of the novel but also helps to demonstrate the power of the bond between that father and son. This style of language makes the reader feel as if this bond is so strong that the characters only need a few words to communicate all of their emotions, thoughts, and feelings; they understand and love each other so much that they can read deep into the others thoughts without explicitly explaining them.

It is clear that this novel is a tragedy not a comedy. Embracing this McCarthy uses dark and often gruesome imagery and language to suck the reader into an environment similar to that of the characters. My favorite piece of dark imagery is used to describe one of the fathers many dreams: “The shore was lined with birch trees that stood bone pale” (pg. 13). Instead of simply describing the trees as “white” McCarthy uses the phrase “bone pale.” This gruesome imagery adds to the apocalyptic and primal nature of the novel.