Month: March 2013

The famous poem “The Wasteland” can be linked to a novel named “The Road” in many ways, it’s main connections would be the negative descriptive words of the surroundings. The nature is one feature that stands out the most; an example of this would be “dried”, it is used in the Wasteland to describe a “dried tuber” which is apart of nature, this links well The Road atithe man and the boy uses “dried limbs” to create fires to stay warm. However, in “The Road” the dried limbs are really useful to them, it is apart of their survival since the situation for them throughout the novel was tough and fighting for survival. Another nature related description that is a connection to The Road too would be “shower of rain”, this relates signifcantly as the weather throughout The Road seems to be between rain and snow. The wasteland, the weather conditions doesn’t seem to be as bad as the novel; that to every negative word it has a positive in the next line. For “shower” of rain, the next line would be “sunshine”.

One other connection between The Wasteland and The Road, is its statements and negative words. In The Wasteland at the end of stanza 3, “One must be so careful these days” this is crucial especially in The Road as the state they are in, they cannot risk chances of trusting people or letting anyone else travel with the man and the son.  The negative word would be “cruellest”, this relates to The Road as the boy felt like his dad was being the cruellest when he left the man completely naked and with normal in the middle of the road.

There are also verbs within The Wasteland that can be related to The Road too. An example of this would be covering, this can be related to The road in two ways; one would be that the father is always covering and protecting his son through everything they went through, another would be the physical blankets that the man finds and he always hands it to his son first before covering himself with a blanket too. Second verb would be feeding, its connection to The Road would be similar to the word covering aswell. The father is constantly finding food to feed the boy and himself, but he keeps the boy as his main priority; towards the end where he knows he will not make it any longer, he makes the boy eat their last can of food all by himself.

What evidence is there that the setting of The Road might have been the result of a nuclear war/disaster?

Throughout this novel, the journey consists the man and the boy alone, they meet other people while travelling; however never allow them to continue the journey with them. There are a couple times when the man has a few flashback of a women, the reader would assume it is his wife and the mother of the child as when she was speaking to the man about travelling the road together; she spoke her mind that she believes “they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him”. As she had said “us”, it is likely they are a family; however when asking the man “we used to talk about death… we don’t anymore. Why is that?” the man simply responds that he doesn’t know. She then says “it’s because it’s here”, this leads to another assumption that she may had commit suicide.

Since the boy seems to be really young, due to events in the novel such as he always wants to help others, which means he still has an innocent mind and does not know much of the real reality of the world yet and how he didn’t know the what “coke” is which is a universal drink and much liked by many. It is therefore possible he was not born before the tragedy began. It must have occurred years ago, although there are still corpses and destruction everywhere; evidence to this would be when they came across the corpses and saw “shapes of dried blood” and “shrunken eyes”. This could suggest why the father is wary of everyone they meet, since he is aware there are “bad guys” out there who will kill them for food.

It could also imply that a nuclear holocaust may have happen and there are survivors as they meet several throughout the novel and at the end, the boy continues his journey on the road with a family that were also survivors and actually the “good guys”.

If we assume we are reading about the result of a nuclear war/disaster, what message(s) do you think might McCarthy be sending?

McCarthy could be sending several messages, within each character that comes into the novel especially; however the main characters would be main. The man could symbolise selfishness, this can be seen through society however in this situation it could be seen as in his nature to do so. Selfishness can be seen as the only way surviving for himself and the boy within this novel, the message in this would be that sometimes you got to think about yourself first; for the man he thinks about the boy first then himself, as it is his son. His son can be seen as the opposite, more of a collective personality; where he always wants to help others when he sees them, especially if they are alone, hurt or in need of supplies that himself and his father has. This can be the intentions of father and son contrasting each other, which one would actually help them survive to the end and which one will put them in danger.

The first major event of the book would be when the father and son see the man that has been struck by lightening and is severely injured, the boy pleads his father to help the injured man; even so, his father tells him there is nothing they could do. This could be a message as there are times when people witness horrific events, yet they cannot do much to prevent it or help in some way; examples of this would be natural disasters.

What might be suggested by the many descriptions of a scorched landscape covered in ash? What is implied by the father’s statement that, “On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken them the world”?

The descriptions of the scorched landscape covered in ash, could be a real physical feature where a large scale volcano eruption has happened; all that is left behind would be ash. Another reason why it may have been suggested and repeated many times, when be the empties of their surrounds; which makes everything dull and grey due to many average aspects are gone. Average aspects would include colour shops, buildings, clothes, billboards etc; but as it is said there is a huge amount of ash everywhere, it could also suggest that a holocaust was attempted to happen as they tried to burn the whole land around the man and boy’s path.

The father may have stated this due to the emptiness and lack of people around, he believes that as there are only a few people left in their world; most of them cannot be “good guys” (godspokes men possibly) but instead the “good guys” have been taken away from their world, such as the mother of the boy.

McMarthy has made certain words that are repeated throughout the book; reasons could be that it was a constant reminder of the journey and atmosphere it must be for the man and his son. The idea of them travelling but the black and cold remains the same from the very beginning to the end could also bring curiosity if they travelled at all. His writing style can seem basic but affective to some people, as he repeats simple words such as “and”, “blanket” and “fire” yet they can bring a deep meaning to the readers mind.

In the first few pages, repetition of “dark” starts characters interact and known to the reader, it also sets out the imagery of the road by having “When he woke up in the woods in the dark”; commonly woods have images such as empty and negative feeling, with the repetition of “dark” made it seem even more negative making the reader curious as what kind of journey this book will have. The word dark alone is repeated 98 times throughout the whole book, this would echoes’ the ideas on being on the road as the man and boy are constantly moving however still seeing the same things and feeling the same “dark” oar around them.

Throughout the whole book “and” is repeated over 2,800 times, an average of 9 times on each page; this could imply that the journey of the man and the boy just continues, as long as the man is alive they both keep on going on the road. It is also repeated whenever they find goods that will help them to survive and continue their travels, with the repetition of “and” it could make it feel relieved and possibly happy the man and his son was to find the goods; when in such situation you tend to not speak properly and start to repeat yourself.

During the travels of the man and the boy, they often have small talk with each other; whether it is because the boy is very young and he does not know much, or is it just the horrible state of land around them that makes them not want to talk; “okay” is repeated almost 200 times. This could also show how long they have been on the road for, so long that they have ran out of things to talk about and stories to tell; which may echo in their minds about how long they have been travelling for.

“Fire” could be seen as the most important word and actions within this book, this brought warmth to the man and the boy; gave them heat to make their food and because of this, it would’ve made the man and boy feel better and cheer up from the whole disaster. “Fire” is repeated 130 times, mostly they were able to make the fire but there were times when they couldn’t or the fire had died out. Nonetheless “fire” would be something that kept them going and being on the road which repeats the thoughts of their state.

McMarthy also uses a large amount of concrete nouns, which some of them are repeated over 100 times; example of this would be “blanket”. This could been repeated constantly as there was always a need of security as they were travelling on the road, this would relate especially for to boy, the man can be seen as the boy’s “blanket” too as he is always protecting him just like a “blanket” covers you and protects you from the cold and bring heat instead. Each time they moved on further, they would need the sense of the “blanket” more; this could be symbolize each time they find more and new “blankets” there seems to be some sort of negative event that happens after it as well.