Sergio

__"The Road" 10H IndependentReading" __ **About the Book**   The Title of this book is //The Road// by Cormac McCarthy, was published in 2 006. It take s place in a post-apoca lyptic America in the near  future. America had been succumbed to atomic warfare and was in ruin. The amount of available food was so sparse that many tribes of banded survivors had resorted to cannibalism. Among the dwindling number of sur vivors are a father and a son. The two have lived through several winters by scavenging for any food they could find and making shelter wherever they could. They realize that they cannot survive another winter in what was northeast America. The solution they come to is to travel southward. Their journey to the South is what the book focuses on mostly.

**About the Author** Cormac McCarthy is a very accomplished writer that has published over ten books. He was born onJuly 20th, 1933 inRhode Island. He later attended the University of Tennessee until he joined the Air Force in 1953. After he had served his time in the Air Force, he became a lawyer inKnoxville,Tennessee and later in Washington, D.C. McCarthy currently resides in Tesuque, New Mexico with his wife and his son. His other major works of literature include: //No Country for Old Men// (2005), //All the Pretty Horses// (1992), and //Blood Meridian// (1985). The critical reputation of Cormac McCarthy is respected to the highest degree. Some of his novels have been so extolled to such a great extent that they have been made into award winning movies.

**Characters and Conflict** The two main characters in this novel are a father and his son. The father is very fearful of what may happen if he dies and leaves his son to fend for himself. He occasionally has dreams and flashbacks of peaceful, enjoyable memories which he is afraid are a calling to death. The son seems to be very intelligent for his age and adapted to his surroundings. The child has never gotten to experienced many of the things a normal child has due to the catastrophe taking place when he was an infant. Conflict arises when the two come to the realization that they need to find warmer weather. They embark on a journey from northeastern America to southeastern America. The expedition takes them through cities in ruin, freezing nights with no food, and even times of avoiding cannibalistic tribes.

**Theme** The theme of //The Road// is that if terrorism is not handled accordingly, the world could be engulfed in global tragedy and mass destruction.

**Book Review** //The Road// is an extremely interesting novel that is excellent at capturing the reader's attention. It is a book about a father and a son that takes place in a post-apocalyptic time period. The two main characters come to the conclusion that they cannot survive another bitter winter and decide to head south in search for warmer weather and possibly even salvation. The author creates a feeling of sympathy for the two characters as they travel through packs of cannibals and have to scavenge for every meal. The great amount of sensory details seems to bring you on the journey with the father and son to find warmer weather.

**Analysis of Style** Cormac McCarthy's style in //The Road// contains many unique aspects. This novel is written in 3rd person omniscient which helps the reader gain a better understanding of the worries the main characters become subject too. The diction is intelligent but not to the point where it is challenging for a high school student to read. Vesna McMaster shows an example of the higher level diction in her book review when she says "Bind yourself to something like a raft otherwise the logic of the "secular" (a word McCarthy uses frequently in the most surprising applications)" (Vesna). The syntax used by McCarthy is wordy and complex which is often used to help get her point across. This is shown In the beginning of the book when the author shows how important the two main characters are to eachother when she says "Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire" (McCarthy 19). McCarthy makes great use of sensory details in //The Road//. She uses them to effectively show the horrors that the father and son have to face. These sensory details really help to keep the reader interested and are one of the strong-points of the book. Finally, the tone in //The Road// is the most unique component of this author's style. In this story, there is not one speck of hope that is portrayed throughout the whole story. As McMaster says, "I have to confess, I do not see any redemption in this story. There is no hope anywhere..." (McMaster), hope is simply left out. In most other novels about a tragic occurrence, there is hope that one day everything will go back to normal. The level of uniqueness of style this book has really made it enjoyable to read.