Some uses of imagery

They began to come upon from time to time small cairns of rock by the roadside. They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterans. The first he'd seen in some while, common in the north, leading out of the looted and exhausted cities, hopeless messages to loved ones lost and dead. By then all stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. the world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat you children in front of your eyes and the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell. The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyons with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them silently as eyes. Out on the roads the pilgrims sank down and fell over and died and the bleak and shrouded earth went trundling past the sun and returned again as trackless and as unremarked as the path of any nameless sisterworld in the ancient dark beyond.

-McCarthy 153

The first thing I'd like to point out is the part about the hopeless love messages. This seemed to imply that love was gone, it is now merely a fictional idea that is almost lost forever. Love is one of the qualities that distinguishes all humans and now that it is gone McCarthy has removed part of the human aspects from the survivors. They may be alive but the aren't quite human anymore. He reinforces the loss of human qualities shortly after when describing the men who would eat your kids in front of you. While there are a select few in the world now that practice cannibalism it is generally regarded as inhumane and immoral, but in this world it is just a mere way of life to survive. McCarthy even directly says they are living in hell. "...like shoppers in the commissaries of hell." The last line of this passage strikes me as a very powerful line. It seems to say that people died on pathways but the earth kept moving as if nothing happened on those pathways. I feel that McCarthy is trying to say that the world doesn't care if humans live or die because it will continue on regardless. The only things that care about humans are humans, and now that they are almost all gone they are worthless.

There was an oldfashioned drugstore there with a black marble counter and chrome stools with tattered plastic seats patched with electrical tape. The pharmacy was looted but the store itself was oddly intact. Expensive electronic equipment sat unmolested on the shelves. He stood looking the place over. Sundries. Notions. What are these? He took the boy's hand and led him out but the boy had already seen it. A human head beneath a cakebell at the end of the counter. Dessicated. Wearing a bellcap. Dried eyes turned sadly inward.

-McCarthy 155

This passage begins with McCarthy's normal depressing imagery that describes this desolate world, but this time it ends a little differently-they find a decapitated human head in a cakebell. What I find very interesting is his use of the word "unmolested" as opposed to "not destroyed" or "still intact." Molestation is a very aggressive act and one that usually stirs up strong emotion within someone which I think was his goal with this passage. And very shortly after he describes this dried, repulsive human head in a cakebell which will definitely stir up something in everyone. A dried decapitated human head in a cakebell? McCarthy is really trying to emphasize the fact that most humans have become cannibals and to them people are like dessert, aka delicious. It felt to me as if the novel just froze for a moment as they looked into its eyes. This part is just one of the parts that really made me realize that almost everyone is dead and those that are left are doomed.

General Thoughts

Looking back on my older posts I realized that I haven't really given any of my opinions about the books thus far.

Before I even started reading the book I had extremely high expectations of the book because my teacher had made it sound amazing, and I heard it was amazing from a few others as well. I thought "A post apocalyptic story about father and son, sounds pretty good for school." So I chose to read it for the project...

After just one sitting I was blown away by the book. Books generally don't speak to me or get to me, but this book changed all of that. There were moments were I felt like crying or even throwing up. One instance of this is when the father and boy are crossing a bridge and see a giant truck. They think it might have food inside so they climb on top and see a hole. The father throws a match down to get some light in the truck. All they see are bodies upon bodies. McCarthy describes the smell of it and made that moment so real that I felt like throwing up.

The vivid imagery in the story made me feel like if I looked out my window all I would see is a wasteland. The deceased mutilated bodies, the destroyed forests, the few remaining survivors...all absolutely crystal clear in my mind.

Also this book is quite disturbing, and not always in the blood and gore kind of way. McCarthy also toys with your emotions through the child whether it be the father contemplating killing the child to end his misery or the child asking if they would ever eat a person. There were multiple times where I just put the book down for a while to get a breather and cheer up a little bit. Don't get me wrong, the book is absolutely fantastic, and all these disturbing little parts are what makes it so much better.

I believe McCarthy does a fantastic job in the flow of his story. The book can seem very repetitive at times but it gets a little deeper each time and you slowly start to see the horrors of what is really going on. He also gives a little bit of hope every now and then, such as the night where it snows and they wake up and see the white snow laying on the ground.

I have not yet finished the book and cannot wait to see what else McCarthy has in store for me.

Image Analysis Part 2

This image may seem a little out of place at first glance, but I think no picture could be more relevant. I chose this picture because it represents the fire inside them, their life, the only thing they have left to live for. The idea of the eternal flame comes up multiple times throughout the story and its what keeps them going. And after all, without light there can never be shadows. McCarthy does an amazing job at contrasting the deathly world with the optimism of the characters.

(Picture from http://masterycoachexchange.ning.com/photo/photo)

Another small sign of hope that is given is the white snow. One night they are sleeping in a forest on a mountain and wake up to pure white snow. The snow is very quickly covered by black ash though. To me this moment was really powerful because it showed that there is still natural beauty left in the world even though everyone and everything has been destroyed.


(Picture from http://www.vermont1828house.com/trail.htm)

A Post Apocalyptic Playlist

My earlier post about The Human Abstract kind of inspired this. Below are a list of a few songs for you to listen to. These songs are ones that provoked me into really thinking about the post apocalyptic world and what it would be like.

Robert Rich & B.Lustmord - Undulating Terrain


Russian Circles - Enter


The Human Abstract - This World is a Tomb


The Human Abstract - Calm in the Chaos

One Emotional Conversation

Before you read the below excerpt you need to understand that McCarthy's writing style is very odd. He uses no chapters or any divisions of any kind. He also uses no quotation marks at all. Conversations can be very confusing, which I'm sure is something he wanted. It can take many times of reading the same passage just to understand what happened. But anyways, on to the one of the conversation between the father and son.

What is it? the man said.
Nothing.
We'll find something to eat. We always do.
The boy didnt answer. The man watched him.
That's not it, is it?
It's okay.
Tell me.
The boy looked away down the road.
I want you to tell me. It's okay.
He shook his head.
He turned and looked. He looked like he'd been crying.
Just tell me.
We wouldnt ever eat anybody, would we?
No. Of course not.
Even if we were starving?
We're starving now.
You said we werent.
I said we werent dying. I didnt say were werent starving.
But we wouldnt.
No. We wouldnt.
No matter what.
No. No matter what.
Because we're the good guys.
Yes.
And we're carrying the fire.
And we're carrying the fire. Yes.
Okay.

-McCarthy 108-109

This conversation was one of those moments when I was reading and just put down the book and took a breather. The fact that a little boy just asked if they would ever resort to eating people is really terrible. Just imagine your little brother or sister or son or daughter legitimately asking you if yall are going to eat somebody. What kind of world would make a child think that? When the boy asked that it made this fictional world that McCarthy has created so much more real to me. While McCarthy has brilliant vivid imagery, this conversation adds the emotional aspect of this world.
This conversation also really gave light to the overall situation that the father and son were in. They may be living in a world of complete death and misery but they will never resort to eating another human being. While eating another human in our society may seem absolutely ridiculous, eating someone in the post apocalyptic society they live in is very real. The fact that the father can say such an honorable thing in such a desperate time is a true test of his character. McCarthy has built this man as almost a saint. Although he has moments where you see how this world is really affecting him, but that will come in a later post.
Lastly, this conversation shows the motivation that they still have to carry the fire. The fire they are referring to is not a physical flame but a representation of the life they hold inside and they don't want to loose it.

Music that reminds me of The Road- The Human Abstract - "This World is a Tomb"

Below is the song "This World is a Tomb" by The Human Abstract. One night when I was reading this book my ipod was on shuffle and started playing this song. I closed my eyes and just listened. What I saw was these two characters that I had been reading about and the destroyed world in which they now lived.



Lyrics:
Slaving for my solace of mind, digging in the sand until there's blood on my hands,
Careless to the state I'm in, I've so long been alone.
I can't go on.
Rain down and cleanse my soul.
Flow like a river.
Forging insight by pagan torchlight, in cadence warlike,
We draw tears from the sky, because the well's run dry.
I've spread out my seed, its gone in all directions.
It starts to feel like the promised land is a fantasy
And heaven has been swallowed by the desert.
In a drought without submission, not a cloud in the sky,
This course keeps getting harder, the more I try.
I dig up dry bones, and the corpses cry,
As they open their eyes to see the world's decay.
This world's a tomb.
There's a clamor in my heart and its over.
Where is my prize, my promised prize?

(Lyrics from http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/human_abstract_the_lyrics_40183/other_lyrics_71852/this_world_is_a_tomb_lyrics_802403.html)

There are some lines in this song that really stick out to me.

1. "I dig up dry bones, and the corpses cry, as they open their eyes to see the world's decay. This world's a tomb."
This line couldn't be a more accurate depiction of the world McCarthy has created. A world where even the dead cry over the tragic events that have occurred and what the world they know now is nothing like how it once was. Rotting, mutilated corpses are a normal thing for the father and his son to run into during their journey.

Human bodies. Sprawled in every attitude. Dried and shrunken in their rotted clothes.

-McCarthy 40

Sometimes they even encounter what can almost be considered the living dead.

Huddled against the back wall were naked people, male and female, all trying to hide, shielding their faces with their hands. On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt. The smell was hideous.

-McCarthy 93

These parts of the book always left me absolutely disturbed and I could barely fathom what it would be like to see a sight like that. Just try and imagine a world so terrible that it makes those that are already dead cry over it.

2. "It starts to feel like the promised land is a fantasy and heaven has been swallowed by the desert."
The father and son are trying to reach the ocean because the ocean has water and most likely other survivors. The ocean is like their promised land. As they see more and more of the destruction, or desert as the song puts it, through their journey it gives the reader a feel of doom and hopelessness of finding the ocean; as the line in the song says "It starts to feel like the promised land is a fantasy"

The Road: The Movie

Below is a preview for the movie version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road which is scheduled to be released on November 25, 2009. I think it looks fantastic and am planning on seeing it. Be prepared for a book vs. movie analysis come November 25th.

Image Analysis Part 1

McCarthy's book is filled with saddening vivid imagery of the post apocalyptic world through which the two are traveling. The blackened trees, run down houses, and dark sky really help to enhance the feel of hopelessness and possible death. Every now and then he shows a glimmer of hope such as the white snow that is soon covered by ashes. While reading this story the image of a destroyed desolate wasteland never left my mind and left me feeling very disturbed and lachrymose.
(Picture from http://www.virtualdefault.com/blog/2009/03/26/post-apocalyptic-worlds/)



The father and his son are on constant look out for other remaining survivors that pose a threat to them. No one in this post apocalyptic America is trustworthy and they can't risk letting their guard down for even a second. There are multiple instances where they run into other survivors. This picture depicts a moment when the father is woken up by an approaching diesel truck and people which McCarthy depicted as filthy, stained, and vile. He and his son are forced to run from all their supplies just to survive. This scene was very intense and suspenseful because the father and son had gone so long completely alone, but now they were within spitting distance of men that could kill them.
(Picture from http://www.slashfilm.com/tag/the-road/)

Background for those that are not familiar with the story

For those of you out there who have yet to read one of the best written, heart wrenching, and moving stories out there I shall give a brief background so you can have a general overview of the novel. Later on I will go into much greater depth about this amazing book.

As for the background that I have promised you-Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a brilliantly written post apocalyptic story that follows a nameless man and boy's path through the destroyed world. They are pushed to extremes and can barely survive on the little food they can find. The father only wants the best for his son...even if it means death. This book will crawl deep down into your emotions and really speak to you.