The End

I feel that The Road ends at the moment when the man and boy stop walking and he knows that this is where the road ends for 'when he lay down he knew that he could go no further and that this was the place where he would die.' which brings the novel an end for the man and a return to the chronological beginning of the story as the first dream he has in the story reappears, and he is able to pass through this time around. This signals the end for the man and that nothing is holding him back from death anymore, no 'granitic beast'. We are left with the boy alone and grieving for his father; when he joins with the new, mysterious family we are given a new beginning for the boy which we know next to nothing. The end's ambiguity raises many questions which leaves the reader anxious/curious about the boy's future in this world. We know that he is 'carrying the fire' which it is implied can possibly redeem the world but what hope is there in the world of The Road for a life; the boy lives, but is it a life worth living? Will he stay with this new family, carry on living on the road? This ambiguity makes me feel that the end of The Road is not hopeful but rather worrying and bleak with the unknown prospect of the future.

The Relationship of the Man with the Woman

“Nothing was closer to me than your coldness. So much love remembered exactly wrong.”

Günter-Grass

Structure and The Handling of Time

The narrative of The Road moves in the continuous present with analeptic episodes into the man's memories and the sense of time is broken down to scattered and vague references such as 'four more days' and 'In the morning' which are the more specific references presented to us. The broken down sense of time is representant of the man still grasping at a vague sense of a normal routine; wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, walk, eat, walk, eat dinner, sleep during the night. This continuous loop the man keeps as the world around him descends into entropy creates the sense that the man and boy live in their own world and time 'each their others world entire'; that the man and boy live in their own circle of time within this entropic world but at the same time separate from it. The abstract references to time are very important in the story because it represents the concept of time as alien and disconnected from their world, as if it doesn't belong anymore as it -just like the rest of human kind and society- falls into dissolution as any other creation of humans. A key abstract quote of time is 'Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it' which I chose because it creates the feeling that the man's time is not his own and has been taken or 'borrowed' from somewhere or someone else. This ties in with the man slowly letting go of the memories of his past in order to survive in the present which we see in the frequency of his memories slowly declining through the novel; here is created the impression that the man is 'borrowing' time from his life before the boy to give time to live in the present, to survive. In turn this creates two separate characters within one; the man before the explosions and the man after which is a key characterisation of how the man goes through a change in order to survive and brings in the notion that something must be lost in order for something to be gained; the man must sacrifice his past, his humanity to survive in the present and time is 'borrowed' form his past to give time to the present. This could perhaps be the reason for the decline in memories from his past as the novel progresses; as the man's memories begin to run thin, he runs out of memories to take time/strength from. After this he slowly falls to his eventual death as he has no more time from the past left to 'borrow'.

The Road Rat

'A single round left in the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not.' Who is the man echoing here? How do you believe these words are uttered?

These words echo the man's last conversation with his wife where she tells him 'I should have done it a long time ago. When there were three bullets in the gun instead of two... You have two bullets and then what? You cant protect us.' and 'I'm speaking the truth.' which tell us the effect that the woman has on the man; how she lingers in his subconscious despite his endless attempts to rid himself of her. I imagine that these words are uttered with a numb, disconnected tone and expression to reflect the man's shock and despair of the harsh truth that there is only one bullet left, so they must die later, slower. This shows the man trying to repress these feelings of despair and the morbid thoughts of the death that's awaiting them, resulting in this numb and disconnected expression as he refuses to face the truth. The fact that the man echoes the woman's voice here represents that the man feels the closeness and reality of death more now than ever -where he refuses to accept that they will die in other circumstances in the novel e.g. 'Are we going to die now? No.' pg. 92- as the woman is symbolic of death and memories of her only arise when the man feels death is near.

What do we learn about the man through his exchanges with the Road Rat?

Key elements in the man's characterisation arise in his exchange with the Road Rat as acquired traits and knowledge is alluded to in particular as the man describes why the Road Rat will not hear the gun shot. Not only are we shown the man's ability to think quickly in a difficult situation but it is revealed that the man possibly has and interesting history in medicine as the man says 'Because the bullet travels faster than sound. It will be in your brain before you can hear it. To hear it you will need a frontal lobe and things with names like colliculus and temporal gyrus and you wont have them anymore.' or defense/combat in 'The man had already dropped to the ground and he swung with him and leveled the pistol and fired from a two-handed position balanced on both knees at a distance of six feet.'. By using jargon and complex lexis like 'colliculus' and 'temporal gyrus' it is impossible that the man hasn't had some kind of medical training or education which would teach him these complicated terms and how to use them and by combining this knowledge with his obviously deft skill in combat gives reason to deduce that the man had a particular profession which involved all of this skill set. Whatever that may have been we know that it gave him the skill to survive which is presented here and at other parts of the novel (such as the scene when the explosions hit with his wife when he immediately filled the bath).

Why is the Road Rat's character so explicit whilst the man is so implicit?

The man's character is implicit to represent how the man tries to cut himself from his humanity so detatches from any personality or human part of himself in order to survive and not be repressed by any personal preferences/opinions etc. This separates the man (and the boy) from the other characters in The Road and expresses how they are different from them.

On the other hand the character of the Road Rat is made so explicit as to attach the events of The Road to a world forgotten to the characters and connect to American culture. The Road Rat is described as 'lean, wiry, rachitic' and 'dressed in a pair of filthy blur coveralls and a black billcap' which characterises him as a stereotypical 'redneck' character which connects The Road to a key feature in typical American culture (a 'redneck' being the stereotyped image of an American). This means that by featuring this redneck character McCarthy is mythologising the past and combining the world of The Road to the lost world destroyed by the nuclear blasts.

Moments of Rich Lyricism

"And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day."


"Ash moving over the road and the sagging hand of blind wire strung from the black-ended lightpoles whining thinly in the wind."


"Wrapped in the blankets, watching the nameless dark come to enshroud them."


"The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void."


"Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must."