The Road

The Road is a novel telling the story of a man and a son traveling through burned America after a catastrophic event that killed almost all human life and vegetation. The story tells of the two's journey on the road trying to survive. The Road was written by Cormac McCarthy and the date of publication was September 26th, 2006. This novel is of the genre post-Apocalyptic fiction. --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)



Author Biographical Information
'

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels in an array of genres, two screenplays and two plays. He has written in Southern Gothic, Western, and Post-apocalyptic genres. He wrote the following books:

-The Orchard Keeper (1965)

-Outer Dark (1968)

-Child of God (1973)

-Suttree (1979)

-Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West (1985)

-All the Pretty Horses (1992)

-The Crossing (1994)

-Cities of the Plain (1998)

-No Country for Old Men (2005)

-The Road (2006)

-The Passenger (coming soon)

Cormac has received numerous awards (twelve to be exact) of the caliber of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 for The Road. Cormac was born on July 20th, 1933 and is currently 78 years old. Cormac has two sons and has been marred three times. He now lives happily in El Paso, Texas.' --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

Setting: Historical Information
' The Road is set in an undetermined location in the United States. But from the context of the book, the best guess is the East Coast. In the book, there is mention of distant mountains, many rivers and creeks, the Piedmont and a coastline. Also, most of the time throughout the story, the man and son are near U.S. interstates and highways. The landscape and air were coated in thick ash and the vegetation, humans and animals were practically almost nonexistent. There were also no fish in the water as said in the book. On top of that, As far as historical information of the United States, the United States was founded July 4th, 1776.

' --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

Genre
' The genre of this story is Post-Apocalyptic fiction. These type of books are a sub-category of science fiction. Post-Apocalypic fiction is set in a world after a catastrophic disaster. Many books in this genre are in a non-technological future world. Books in this genre are often based on simple goals in life such as survival and finding food and shelter. Post-Apocalyptic fiction books are books with one of the main topics being the concern of the end of civilization. ' --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

Plot Summary
The Road is a book about an unnamed man and son and their journey through America after catastrophic event has happened causing most humans to die, vegetation to die, smoke to cover the Earth and some remaining survivors to become cannibals. The man and son travel throughout the nation while avoiding the cannibals and dangers of what wildlife there was left. The man teaches his son everything he knows. The man and son decide to go south for the winter and there they encounter a thief, cannibals (who were storing malnourished people to eat), and attackers. During their journey to the south, the man had to use his only two bullets to protect his son. While going to the south, the father becomes ill. As they progress throughout the journey, he only gets weaker. And when they decide to go back inland, the man succumbs to illness. The son grieves over his father for a few days until strangers find him. A man, his wife, children and dog had been following the two of them. They convince the son that they are no cannibals and they are the good guys. The son believes them and goes under the protection of the family. Here the story ends. --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

Characters
So, there are basically only two characters in the book. Both of the characters are unnamed.

--Kelsey 21:08, 26 April 2012 (MDT)
 * The man - The man is the father of the young boy. He teaches the boy everything he needs to know to survive before he passes away. Throughout the story, he guides his son through the devastated world and teaches him to believe in humanity and hope. He also gives his son a sense of morality in a world that is definitely quite the opposite. He could be described as resourceful, protective, helpful, loving, hopeful, and assertive. If there is one thing that is shown evident the most in this story, it's that he would do anything to protect his son.
 * The boy - The boy is the son of the man in the story. He could be described as young, hopeful, unknowing (compared to his father), loving and determined. It is guessed that he is in his preteens through his language in the book. His main significance in the book is that he gives the man a reason to live. The boy is all the man has left after his wife committed suicide and this makes the man care for the boy than anything. One of the greatest things that we learn as readers of this book, is the true love the father and son have for each other. The bond they have together truly makes the story.

Author's Style
' "And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark." opening lines, pg.1

I would describe Cormac McCarthy's style as simplistic and that he writes in a minimalist way with straight forward descriptions, very little punctuation and with more focus on what is literally happening instead of how it's written. Also, shown above in the quote, Cormac uses sentence fragments quite a lot. He doesn't particularly go by the traditional grammar rules but rather, by his own set of consistent rules for grammar. --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

'

Setting
The setting of the book is the United States--probably the East Coast (though it doesn't state a particular location in the book). There is mention of distant mountains, rivers, creeks and the Piedmont. The land and air are coated in gray ash. The cities are also destroyed, plant life is gone, and there is barely any animals. All of this is from the result of some unnamed catastrophic event. Even the natural seasons are destroyed and it is always winter. The setting of this book is very brutal. --Kelsey 21:12, 26 April 2012 (MDT)

Themes
--Kelsey 21:16, 26 April 2012 (MDT)
 * Theme One - I think one of the themes is to protect your child. This is shown throughout the book by the man for his son. For example, when someone attacks the son, he shoots the attacker. He would do anything for his son and that is shown throughout the book.
 * Theme Two - I think another theme is to make the best out of bad situations and to always stay positive. This is just shown by the nature of the novel and how the characters keep on going throughout their journey and never once give up.
 * Them Three - Lastly, I think that survival is a main theme. The whole book is about the man and the son's journey to survive in the brutal world they live in.

Motifs
First of all, a motif is a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work. These are a couple of the motifs shown throughout The Road. :)

1. Protection of the environment

2. Faith in humanity

3. Responsibility

4. Family values

5. Protection of loved ones

6. Desperation

7. Growing up

8. Acceptance of death

9. Nature vs. Humans

10. Friendship

--Kelsey 15:45, 29 April 2012 (MDT)

Symbols
1. The shopping cart - The shopping cart symbolizes the man and the boy's struggle and push to survive. They carry it almost everywhere they went with what little supplies they had to survive. And just that fact also reinforces the idea that the shopping cart symbolizes how truly terrible their environment was.

2. Flares - The flares that the father finds on the wrecked boat directly relate to the saying in the book, "carrying the fire". That saying symbolizes and the father and son's hope for humanity.

3. Crumbling houses - There are several crumbling, devastated houses in this story that the father and son try to take refuge in. So in a way, they symbolize devastation of their once functioning society... but they also symbolize hope by being shelter for the father and son.

--Kelsey 21:23, 26 April 2012 (MDT)

Significance of the Opening/Closing Scenes
Significance of the opening scene - The opening scene starts out with the descriptions of a man and young boy (implied who is his son) in the middle of the forest in the dark. In the very beginning it displays the main part of the plot of the novel--the bond between the father and son and the love between them. I think it is also significant because it showed the overall brutality of this "world" in the story right away to grab the reader's attention. I think this is a great opening to the book because it displays what the whole book is about, survival.

Significance of the closing scene - The closing scene is of the son being found other "good guys" who had been following both him and his father. They take him in and say that he is safe with them. I think the significance of the closing scene is that it shows that the boy will be okay after the death of his beloved father. The boy goes with the family and it becomes somewhat of a "happy" ending. I think the closing scene is very good, because it closes up the book nicely (taking consideration that it's a post-apocalyptic novel). --Kelsey 21:32, 26 April 2012 (MDT)

Memorable Quotes
1. "You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand? Yes. He sat there cowled in the blanket. After a while he looked up. Are we still the good guys? he said. Yes. We're still the good guys." page 77

This quote shows the love between father and son. This quote also shows the difference of morality between the boy and the man. The man finds the killing justified by God but the boy still finds it wrong and because of that, he asks whether they are still the good guys to his father. His father promptly replies "Yes."

2. "There is no God and we are his prophets." page 143

This quote shows an atheist view and a reversal of the usual religious theme of prophets. If atheists are prophets, then that means that they are trying to show to humans that they need to confront the reality of the situation of the world they are living in.

3. “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 name 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." page 75

This shows the difference in the setting of out present day reality and the post-apocalyptic world of havoc. It shows that everything was turning very simple and the single goal of the need to survive was prevalent. So to say, it was about brands anymore, it was about the general idea of food or shelter. --Kelsey 20:25, 22 April 2012 (MDT)

Allusions

 * Allusion:: A brief, usually indirect reference to a person, place, or event--real or fictional.

Biblical allusions:

1. There is no God" and the man says, "What if I told you he was a God?

2. The often said phrase "carrying the fire". --Kelsey 16:22, 29 April 2012 (MDT)

Adaptations
There aren't any adaptations of this book. But there is a film of the book. The movie came out November 25th, 2009. It was rated R and received decent reviews- most in the 60% range for most online rating sites. The movie is also out in DVD. --Kelsey 16:23, 29 April 2012 (MDT)

Reviews
The Road has very good reviews. It was put on Oprah's Book List and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. The Road has also had raving reviews from The New York Times and the public. It has over four stars on Amazon.com and it has even been called a masterpiece by some. It's definitely a book worth checking out. --Kelsey 16:23, 29 April 2012 (MDT)