Cormac Mccarthy The Road Analysis

While there's life, there's hope According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a “flashback, in motion pictures and literature, [is a] narrative technique of interrupting the chronological sequence of events to interject events of earlier occurrence. The earlier events often take the form of reminiscence.” Cormac McCarthy makes use of this narrative strategy throughout his novel, “The Road”, to present the reader some past events in order to provide background for the current narration because the story begins after the explosion occurred. McCarthy decides to begin the narration at that point, for “the use of flashback enables the author to start the story from a point of high interest and to avoid the monotony of chronological exposition”, as
Gray as his heart” (27). Through the use of a flashback, McCarthy explains quite little the moment of the tragedy. The reader only knows that “the clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions” (52) fills the air. The reader can infer that an explosion, perhaps a nuclear bomb, has destroyed civilization. This scene also reveals that his wife is pregnant and that the boy is born after the catastrophe; “she was standing in the doorway in her nightwear, clutching the jamb, cradling her belly in one hand” (53). As cities are burning and everything has been wrecked, “she gave birth in their bed by the light of a drycell lamp” (59). The father is the one who receives the boy and cuts his umbilical cord. From that moment onwards, the father and son build up a strong connection. After the author explains what happened to the man’s wife, the reader understands the man’s dread of giving up and losing hope because they were his wife’s feelings. His wife commits suicide because she thinks that “we’re the walking dead in a horror film” (55) and that her husband cannot protect them from the bad guys. She is convinced that cannibals are going to rape, kill and eat them. She decides to kill herself with a flake of obsidian and leave her son and husband alone, instead of trying to survive all together as a family, because she cannot continue living in such a devastated world. No matter how hard the man tries to persuade her, she is determined to do it because she does not have confidence in him and she thinks that he will not be able to save them. Nevertheless, in the end the man demonstrates that she was wrong because he and the child could stay alive for many years and he could teach his child that if he never loses hope, his values, and ethics, and he is on the right track, he will achieve his goals. Many authors exploit the use of