After reading pages one through seventy-two, I have concluded that the style of The Road is very different from any other book I have ever read. The "standard" structure of a book consists of a series of chapters, and sometimes even larger parts throughout the novel in addition to these chapters. The length of these chapters definitely varies for different novels, but that is common. However, this book has neither parts nor chapters. Instead, it consists of usually shorter paragraphs that are divided by either a space or a dinkus.
Another part of McCarthy's style that sets The Road apart from other novels is the way he writes dialogue. Typically, dialogue is written with quotation marks surrounding the characters' words so that the reader can tell the difference between that and the narrative. In this book, McCarthy integrates the dialogue into the novel without separating it with quotation marks.
He also doesn't always have the words of a new character start a new paragraph. Such as when the boy and his father set up camp for the night and the paragraph ends with: "Oil for their little slutlamp to light the long gray dusks, the long gray dawns. You can read me a story, the boy said. Can't you, Papa? Yes, he said. I can," (7). This seemingly would pose a problem for the reader sometimes, but context clues allow the reader to figure out who is speaking quite easily, even if it isn't explicitly stated as "he/she said."
This is the first book in a long time that has kept me engaged enough to want to continue to read. With this book, I found it hard to put it down and rather easy to read several pages in one sitting. Had McCarthy not written it in this style, I most likely would not have enjoyed it this much so far. The most effective part of the novel that made me feel this way was the absence of chapters. At first, I thought it would make the book boring, seeing that it would feel similar to a run-on sentence on a larger scale. However, I found its effect to be quite the opposite.
It is told in a way that even at breaking points, it never seems to end in a "good place to stop" to pick-up another time. Instead, each break makes the reader think "I'll just read one more section" again and again, but they never actually arrive at a decent place to put the book down. I find this very interesting since I have not been intrigued by a book like this for a while. As a matter of fact, it makes me want to read more of McCarthy's work after I finish The Road.
I believe that my experience with this captivating novel is shared, which is why his style is so unique and yet popular. It's important for an author to know how to keep their reader engaged, enough to advance to the next chapter. However, McCarthy has found a different way to prevent his readers from taking breaks from his book as often.
Another stylistic choice that McCarthy utilizes, is dialogue without quotation marks. By embedding the words of the characters directly into the narrative, it makes the descriptions and dialogue equally important to form the story and make the experience seem like one long thought process inside the man's head.
The novel also consists of a series of flashbacks, which are woven into the novel occasionally. So far, these flashbacks have given us background knowledge about life before the catastrophic event and soon after its occurrence. We learn that the boy's mother (the man's wife) killed herself after the tragedy struck since she was convinced that "sooner or later they will catch [their family]... They are going to rape [them] and kill [them] and eat [them]," (56). Her fear overcomes everything else; even her love for her family is not enough to prevent her from taking her own life.
These flashbacks both inform the reader of life before the present, but also reflect the point of view of the novel. It appears that most of the story is being told from the father's point of view rather than the son's. The only knowledge we know of the boy is what he physically does or says, rather than thinks. As this part of the book progresses, his communication seems to minimize to "I'm scared" or simple nods or headshakes.
Therefore I believe the novel is written in third person limited, which would explain the scrambled style of the writing. The book seems to be a reflection of the man's thoughts, which is why the flashbacks are scattered, the dialogue isn't sectioned off, and there are no chapters because his mind never rests.
The book isn't difficult to read since the word choice is simpler and the sentence structures aren't complicated. There are some short, some long, but that seems "standard" for a piece of writing. The simpler word choice reflects how the man is thinking, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be full of complicated sentence structures and advanced diction for the average person's thoughts.
More symbols may come up along the way since I am only a quarter of the way through, but there is one symbol that I have picked up on: the road that the man and his son are traveling on. No matter how hopeless it may seem, how cold it gets, or how tired they become, they continue to press forward down this road, believing that life will be at least somewhat better down south.
Therefore the road poses as a symbol of hope and how humans will resort to survival skills to continue to push through even at the darkest of times. Since the road seems to be the thing least affected by the apocalypse, it symbolizes how even when life around them is at its worst, it's in a human's nature to do whatever is necessary to survive. However, in a rare case, this is not always true because of what the man's wife did to herself instead.
I believe that, in a grueling way, this novel will continue to show the reader the extreme things that someone would be willing to do to stay alive and protect their family. Even though these actions may have once seemed unfathomable when the world wasn't in such a horrible state, they have now become a crucial part of their survival.
Picture Citations:
Jun 27 Lessons Learned From The Road. Payton Minzenmayer, Squarespace, paytonminzenmayer.com/blog/wllpejweg5htfks9sb3wr7syl265rk. Accessed 17 Feb. 2021.
The Road Paperback – March 28,2006. Amazon, www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895. Accessed 17 Feb. 2021.
