McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 183
Scene
The man went back to sleep but the boy stayed awake, his thoughts plagued by the dream.
Papa was gone. He didnt die, he was just gone. For a while the boy looked for him. Maybe he got lost tripped and fell somewhere and was waiting for the boy to come help. The boy searched for days but the man was nowhere to be found, The boy wanted to follow the man. He stopped looking for food, he didnt follow the road. But he knew the man wouldnt like that so he continued on the road.
Slowly the boy gave up living by the man’s overly cautious ways. Being on his own in the world, never suited him. He wished for time with the man, time with anyone.
Encountering people on the road had a new protocol. Instead of hiding, waiting for them to while going past. He waits to see if they are good, if they carry the fire. He tells them to come with him. The boy became a man, his life became full, and he forgot the man. When the realization dawned on the man he broke down, crying for a man forgotten.
Then the boy woke up
Rational
I chose to have my story excerpt show what happened in the boy's dream because I wanted to explore the boy’s character more. The book was centered on the man. It narrates his thoughts, and the reader sees the world though his eyes, even though the book seems to have an omniscient narration. Since we only really get the man’s perception of the world we get his opinion of the boy. In his eyes the boy has a divinatory air.
We do not get a look at the thoughts behind his character, he is supporting character to the man’s story. Important enough to influence the main character, but not enough so that he gets his own arc. The man wakes up to find the boy crying because the man wasn’t there, in my scene I made cause the man’s absence be because of his death. This way I was able to create the boy’s personality without the man shadow.
The boy contemplates suicide because it was made very clear, by the boy’s want to keep the man by his side at all times and him questioning the man about always being there for him, that the boy did not want the man to leave him for anything. It would of made no sense for the boy to shake off the man’s death like it did not affect him. I didn’t allow the boy to stay in his rut because, although sometimes defiant, he valued the man’s opinion greatly, and the man would of wanted him to continue on the road without him. He encounters more people, and continues his journey with them not only because of his abandonment issue with the man, but also because of his prophetic demeanor. When they encountered the lighting man he remarked about how he thought the boy was angle like. So it would make sense that other people would also find his abnormality a sign from the heavens, and gravitate to him.
In the book he man says that bad dreams are good, but because the boy is so young it seemed more likely that he would have a happy dream. I surrounded the good witch bad because although the boy can escape the horrors of his world as he sleeps, hardship is all he knows. So I ending his dream with a happily ever after did not fit. I also wanted to make it parallel to the book, by having the boy cry about the man’s absence.
