From page 284 onwards, McCarthy’s ways of telling the story starts to change a little. The man is injured and things start to get real serious and intense, as the man knows that his time is running up. It takes a small turn as the man is in pain and the boy is frightened, he boy does not know what to do which then makes the man a little more impatient than he normally is with the boy. McCarthy methods start to range from using more of the man and boy’s actions to continue the story than the two speaking to each other, to having less punctuation at some parts for the reader to feel the time consuming situation and how much longer the man will actually survive.
A method which is bold within the first few pages (from page 284 onwards) would be the narrative perspective. It is common for a narrator to be omniscient, to make them a reliable narrator; however from page 284 onwards, the narrator can be seen as detached due to the small changes of telling the story McCarthy as used. Evidence to this would be page 289, the majority of the page is the man and boy speaking to each other; they are expressing their concerns to each other. The boy asks many questions about his father’s leg and to make sure that he is OK, but also to reassure himself that everything will be OK. As the majority of the page is the conversation between the man and the boy, this would make the narrator detached. Although it could just be one of McCarthy’s method of telling the story, as they believe it would be better for the conversation to continue the story instead. This makes it more reliable and legitimate as it is the characters themselves saying everything word for word, than someone re-telling the story.
Setting description from the novel would be an extra method of McCarthy’s for The Road. The weather is constantly either rain, snow or windy; this can suggest that is could be set in the near-distant future when global warming and climate change has come to a tipping point and the weather is bi-polar all around the world. An example of this from page 286 would be “It was raining and a hard wind was rattling the glass”, for glass to be rattling from nothing but the wind suggest it was a strong current and would be something you would expect in a storm or hurricane, yet not on a rain and windy day. Another quote to support this would be “Anything that could move had long been blown away”; simple statements about the weather like the previous quote is a common method of McCarthy to tell the story throughout the book, as weather and nature in general have a huge impact on how the man and boy was to survive and go on.
A different method of McCarthy’s way of telling the story would be the dystopian text; this ranges from the setting to the man and boy’s actions. An example of this would be “He sat in the road”; this would be categorized as dystopian because a typical road in modern reality would have car’s driving by frequently, even in small side roads would have some cars going by that it would not be safe to sit in the road. This can also imply that something unpleasant has happened to the majority of the people, therefore they decided to sit in an open space like that. It could also suggest that gas could have run out by then, making it hard for cars to function. One more quote that shows dystopia has taken place from page 292, “He coughed all the time and the boy watched him spitting blood”; in a typical reality like today, it would be common for someone who coughed constantly to seek medical help.
Stark language, the use of colour and sensuous adjective is methods McCarthy has used for this novel all through until the very end. An example of this on page 293 would be, “Dead trees standing out of the grey water”; the word “grey” is repeated 81 times in The Road, an average of one every two pages. For some pages such as 293, it is repeated twice within a page which foreshadows future events. The same page 293, “dead” is also repeated a couple times; this could suggest that death is coming closer to one of them, at this point it is likely for the reader to realise that it would be the man.
To conclude, McCarthy has a variety of methods of telling the story from page 284 onwards. However the main methods would be that there are a few pages that are filled with just the conversation bouncing between the man and the boy, or having descriptive words and use of colour to describe their actions and surroundings that can be taken into account to forebode future events.
Some good points in this response, Myhanh. You’ve picked up on how the narrative devices change in this section of the novel and considered what they signify. You’ve done some language analysis (repetition of the word ‘grey’)and have suggested that it signals the man’s approaching death, which is good.
In your second paragraph on perspective I think you need to mention how the perspective shifts after the man’s death i.e. we follow the man throughout the novel, but when he dies we follow the boy. How does McCarthy show this change (language, point of view etc.) and what could it mean? Is all hope lost because the man is dead or will the boy ‘carry the fire’? What is the tone?
In your paragraph on setting, could you explore how the setting changes? What could this signify?
I think you also need to look at the final paragraph about the trout in the stream as it is extremely important. How is the language different here? From whose perspective is it? How do you interpret it (hopeful/hopeless etc.)?
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