Symbols, Imagery, Allegory
Highways and interstates (and some minor roads) comprise the setting of this novel. (The characters do stop at a few houses, but these function as pauses in their journey.) The characters spend so...
Setting
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McCarthy continually reminds us of the bleakness of the landscape in The Road. You can't go for more than two pages before reading something like this: "Ash fell on...
POV/Narrative Voice
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An omniscient narrator tells the story of The Boy and The Man in The Road, but we'd be short-changing you if we didn't say more. Sure, it's third person – but it'...
Tone
It's really amazing that McCarthy can combine what's basically a horror tale of wild cannibals with a tender father-son love story. It would take us forever to list all the nasty stuff in this nove...
Style
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McCarthy shifts between two styles in The Road. When he's waxing lyrical and getting all worked up about something lost to the world, he tends to bust out the fifty-dolla...
What's Up With the Title?
This title practices the KISS rule: Keep It Simple Stupid. No fancy-pants phrases or obscure allusions to W.B. Yeats here. McCarthy simply names the book after the dominant setting: the road. (Comp...
What's Up With the Ending?
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The ending of the novel is surprisingly hopeful. After 200-odd pages of gore and wandering, and after The Man dies, leaving The Boy all alone, some kind souls...