5. McCarthy's novel is a stark contrast to Kerouac's in terms of language. While Kerouac is lyrical, load, 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?
Part 1:
When I went to Barnes & Nobles to get the books the woman looked at the books. Her face dropped and she said to me “,When your finished reading this book make sure you go watch the most hilarious movie ever, because this is the most depressing book you will ever read.” We both laughed but while walking out the store I became anxious to understand what she was talking about. I read the back and I thought to myself “,This doesn’t sound that bad,” but then I read the first 30 pages and I started to understand when the woman was talking about lol. McCarthy writes in a style that's dark, sad, and makes you want to crawl in a ball in a corner and just die lol. However, is works, and its 100% appropriate for the story line of this book. The story itself is a very sad one, but the narration of this book completely pushes you over the edge. Its so dark that even situations that are supposed to be joyful feel very sad and depressing.
“The rank meconium. Her cries meant nothing to him. Beyond the
window just the gathering cold, the fires on the horizon. He held aloft the
scrawny red body so raw and naked and cut the cord with kitchen shears and
wrapped his son in a towel.”This is when the father has a flashback of
the night his wife had his son.
McCarthy writes about the “fires on the horizon” and right after that he writes about the child being born. IDK about anyone else but that's really depressing to me. Even the way he describes the body of the baby makes me feel sad. Does anyone else feel the same?
Part 2:
I think the intended audience for this book is honestly anyone.
This book, to me, heavily speaks on keeping hope alive no matter what. Or as stated many times in the book “keeping the fire” which to me means keeping the hope. But what does everyone else think?
3 comments:
I agree with you about McCarthy making the happy moments feel so depressed and the way you described it reminded me of the movie Tangle, when Rapunzel escaped and sh felt happy but then she felt bad that she left because she had disobeyed her mother( but whatever). And yes I too became convinced that the "fire " was hope.
IDK if this makes sense.
Cecilia what your saying makes sense, because i was thinking the same thing. Except i didn't relate the vook to Tangle lol.
But Yulonda I agree with you because "keeping the fire" came off to me as keeping hope too. When reading the book, i felt like that's what jack kerouac was trying to tell his audience. He does so in every situation that he puts the characters through and all the personalities that he gives them.
About the quote you posted: Why doesn't McCarthy pay any attention to time? With On the Road, time was something that kept being gone over again and again, they couldn't get enough of it and they didn't understand it, and even when they were escaping it they looked for people who might help them understand how they could know it too. McCarthy doesn't give his reader much to work with anywhere, but especially when it comes to letting you into the little part of the character he might have developed (like the man's past), you can't really trust yourself to know whether he's in the past or the present or just his own fantasies. This is the only time you can really sympathize with the characters, and I thought this was a strange choice and didn't exactly know what I was supposed to get from it. Also, why does he use pronouns so vaguely? That's another thing you can't really trust yourself with. The man and the boy are purposefully not given names, but McCarthy doesn't really assume the full responsibility of this when he's using "he" all the time.
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