I was very impressed with (and also disturbed by) McCarthy's ability to portray the dehumanization of people after the apocalypse. With the destruction of civilization, it's inevitable that people would be forced into animalistic ways. It seems natural that when our way of life is destroyed, we must be reduced to nothing more than animals, and survive any way possible. Although the man and his son appear to be resisting this tendency, by maintaining a human-free diet, and looking out for each other without any of selfishness, it is impossible to act completely human with such a dreary and uncivilized lifestyle.
While reading, I realized that I felt very removed from the characters. McCarthy's decision to omit quotation marks from the dialogue made conversations feel very distant. It seemed as if the characters could be communicating in some foreign dialect, which the author was considerate enough to translate. In addition, McCarthy's decision to leave the father and son nameless contributed to the feeling that they lacked human identities.
In stark contrast to this alien mood was the comforting love that the father and son had for each other. The father's protectiveness against the harshness of their reality was very uplifting and warm in comparison to the their strange spoken interactions. I was shocked at how normal the boy seemed; he interacted as innocently as any child sheltered since birth. On the other hand, now I have to contradict myself to say that I was horrified by the level of maturity the child had to have in order to survive on the road. Namely, his promise to his father that he would kill himself if anyone were to capture him was heartbreaking.
Overall, though, the level of normalcy achieved by the father and son was very impressive to me; they maintained a wholesome existence until the father's death.
While reading, I realized that I felt very removed from the characters. McCarthy's decision to omit quotation marks from the dialogue made conversations feel very distant. It seemed as if the characters could be communicating in some foreign dialect, which the author was considerate enough to translate. In addition, McCarthy's decision to leave the father and son nameless contributed to the feeling that they lacked human identities.
In stark contrast to this alien mood was the comforting love that the father and son had for each other. The father's protectiveness against the harshness of their reality was very uplifting and warm in comparison to the their strange spoken interactions. I was shocked at how normal the boy seemed; he interacted as innocently as any child sheltered since birth. On the other hand, now I have to contradict myself to say that I was horrified by the level of maturity the child had to have in order to survive on the road. Namely, his promise to his father that he would kill himself if anyone were to capture him was heartbreaking.
Overall, though, the level of normalcy achieved by the father and son was very impressive to me; they maintained a wholesome existence until the father's death.
2 comments:
Whenever I see poetry that's in some sort of artsy and visually syncopated set up, I always try to think about what the poet wanted to say by spacing it like that. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes it seems like they just did it to look cool. Anyway, that's what I was thinking about a lot while I was reading The Road. The whole quotation markless situation had potential to really bother me if it was purely decorative. But there was this one part on page 68, where the Man is thinking to himself about the single round left in the revolver and he says "You will not face the truth. You will not." Because there were no quotation marks or an indent to signify the switch from narration to dialogue, it took me a second to realize the Man was actually saying it. I think this was a purposeful effect on McCarthy's part. Because he can so seamlessly switch from third to second person, it kind of seemed as if he was talking to the reader. And I kind of liked that.
I was also very impressed with the book. I could also say while reading their dialouge i sometimes got confused and felt distant to the characters due to the fact that their were no quotaions or names even. I would have to say that i did admire the relationship the father and son seemed to have. Especially how the father protected his son at all times and rarely trusted anyone that they encountered. There were many times where i felt sad for the young boy, considering how brave and willing he had to be during their long, dreadful journey.
Post a Comment