Analysis Of The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel, “The Road”, he does not include punctuation and other grammatical structures or names to create a narrative that is stripped to nothingness like the novel’s setting. By choosing this style for his writing, he communicates to the reader the emptiness of the world after all the tragic event for all intentions and purposes destroyed it. Despite his use of the bare minimum in writing “The Road”, he can convey the deep love that exists between the two main characters, the father and the son. Using the unembellished statements and questions that make up their interaction and conversation, McCarthy gives the reader a clear sense of the undying tenderness and devotion that lives and grows between father and son in the face of impossible odds.

McCarthy has a very unique way of writing, so the style of his writing relates back to the content in the book.

In “The Road” his style is dry and quite firm even in the more uplifting moments in the book. McCarthy tends to have either big long sentences such as “The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a travelling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have been carried off by wolves.” (78) and really short ones like “Nothing. Just okay.” (10). This could be related to the content as it could represent scenes of danger and the longer sentences could represent scenes of travel.

McCarthy's lack of grammar throughout the book can be connected to the content as in the story the father and son are stripped of luxuries to survive. Like in the writing, the sentences are stripped of their luxuries, which is grammar. As the father and son suffer, the words suffer. Due to the lack of grammar, the book becomes hard to read, especially in moments of speech:

“Can I ask you something? he

said.
Yes. Of course.
Are we going to die?
Sometime. Not now.
And we're still going south” (10).
This emphasizes the point before in a slightly different way. As the father and son face hardships, the reader must face a hardship of trying to figure out who is speaking.
McCarthy also has ways of emphasizing events. He separates the paragraph that has the event, in the middle of the page. For example, page 28 in the middle of the page. The paragraph holds some significance as it is one of the few moments that the book takes a flashback to the start of the disaster. This is to emphasize the significance to the story.
In conclusion, McCarthy lacks grammar throughout the story to show that grammar isn’t important. He wants the reader to be more engaged in the actual story and the bigger issue which is the father and son trying to survive the post-apocalyptic world. Grammar isn’t important compared to what is taking place in the book. As a reader, it is hard to notice the grammar issues because the story is so engaging and scary.