McCarthy Unabridged: The Road Page 189

Posted by Michaela Prell in Being Human - Giknis - B on

Below you will find a passage that I imagine was cut from McCarthy's original manuscript. But first please enjoy some photography inspired by the book.

Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.45.59 AM
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.45.59 AM
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.45.29 AM
Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.45.29 AM
The man woke up to a still sky. The world around him was silent except for the movement of the boy’s breath next to him. The night around him was lighter than usual, there must be a full moon in under the thick grey clouds. The mans dream had been of a day that was hidden to him behind veils of time. He stared up at the silhouettes of barren trees, unglued by the knowledge his own mind had buried from himself. Once, long ago, he had been taught where the evil in the world was. The serpents that could crawl under one's skin, the devils that sat atop shoulders waiting to steer the right hand wrong,  and the demonic monsters that stood by in darkness to climb into the chest of even the purist sleeper, had been pointed out to him by soft wrinkled hands so that he would recognize them and know to avoid their will to harm him. Now, under the black veins that climbed towards the glowing grey sky, he could see that the bad in this world had no vessel. It never had. Evil was in the air around them, and could not be separated and done away with. The only use it had was when it manifested in his dreams, to remind him he must wake up.

The explanation for the choices I made in writing this passage are located below.


My choice of location for my passage was what most influenced what I did. I put my passage in the middle of page 189, because it comes directly after a passage that was the most meaningful to me from the whole book. The idea from that passage that impacted me was that we as people act as if things are evil, when they in no way are, because we want a way to fight against the bad in our world. I wanted to explore the man having this realization after having that memory as a dream. I also wanted to connect my passage to the passage that comes after it, which is about how bad dreams are good for the man and boy, because they allow them to keep fighting. As a result, the man realizes the evil in his world is the environment, it is what him and the boy are fighting to survive. But in a small way, it helps them to keep fighting, because they have bad dreams. The motif for this passage is dreams, because it is both a reflection on a dream, and a foreshadow to the next passage which also talks about dreams. This passage is also meant to further the plot by foreshadowing the passage that comes next where the man and boy talk about dreams, and how having bad ones are important to survive. It is also supposed to reveal more about the man's past, who he was, and how he has changed. My theme and essential question for this piece are closely linked and both deal with evil. The line between good and evil (my theme) is clear cut in some ways for the man and boy. They do not steal or eat other people, so they are good. But if evil has no real place, if it is constantly around them, then how do the man and boy stay good, when they can see nothing but bad? This leads into my essential question, where does evil come from? We see in his memory that the man once thought evil came from creatures that tried to overpower him and make do bad things. But he realizes this is not true. So then where is the origin of evil, and how did it take over the world that the man and boy struggle through? I don’t have the answer to these questions, but I wanted to focus on them for my passage because McCarthy had made me wonder about them, and I am using what I have written to further my own exploration.


Comments (6)

Clio Fleece (Student 2016)
Clio Fleece

Awesome piece! I really like how you chose to focus on the man for character development because I do think that in the book there is much more development of the boy. It was interesting and effective the way you chose to connect both the previous passage and the coming passage via your writing. Great job!

Clio Fleece (Student 2016)
Clio Fleece

Awesome piece! I really like how you chose to focus on the man for character development because I do think that in the book there is much more development of the boy. It was interesting and effective the way you chose to connect both the previous passage and the coming passage via your writing. Great job!

Zack Hersh (Student 2016)
Zack Hersh

I really enjoyed reading your piece. Reading the passage that inspired it, then reading yours, then reading the passage that followed really gave me a different understanding of the one that inspired you. I really liked the lines from "he could see that the evil in this world had no vessel" to "remind him that he must wake up." they were especially strong.