Stylistic features in the road

Start by describing what the passage is about, then have a discussion of stylistic features that can be linked back to this, what is their effect?

This passage is about the man's thoughts on a series of different things, followed by a flash back. The thoughts go from his dream, he was previously in, and then onto more philosophical/ in his mind thoughts and then his view point on the world as it is now for him.

Cormac McCarthy uses a number of different stylistic features to get across what is happening in the passage, for example he uses a lot of personification ' the dream bore the look of sacrifice ' this use of personification here illustrates the idea that the Spector of death is constantly hanging over the man, the use of the word 'sacrifice' is what really highlight this, and shows that even the man's dreams resemble death. Another example of personification is 'banished sun circles', McCarthy also chooses a negative use of the feature here also; 'banished' is a very gloomy way to personify the sun, it's almost an oxymoron, but because McCarthy does this it gives the passage a dark mood as what is normally connotated as being good such as the sun has been given a shadowy spin to it.

Another stylistic feature that is used in this passage is a syndetic list when he is describing how his wife died, 'and she died alone...and there is no...and there is no...' The syndetic list here give the text a very slow, airy pace, making it seem almost dream like. McCarthy is mirroring the pace of the paragraph with the content it is describing, so the dreamlike pace imitates the actual topic that is the man's dream.

Many adjectives are used through out this passage, but all the adjectives have one thing in common, that they are all very dark and gloomy for example 'deranged' 'impaled' and 'failed'. These adjective reflect the dark and gloomy atmosphere that the man inhabits. The adjectives McCarthy chooses can also be connoted with the actions of some sort