Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads We’re on a road to nowhere Come on inside Takin’ that ride to nowhere We’ll take that ride I chose this song simply for the title. The man knows where they’re going but when the boy asks where they are going he doesn’t give the most direct answers. It also reminds me of the book because the man has no idea where or what he’s expecting to be south.

Radioactive, Imagine Dragons(corny) I’m waking up to ash and dust I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust I’m breathing in the chemicals This song is literally so corny, but I still have to think about how accurate it is to the world of The Road. In the road everything is gray, even the rain is gray like ash. The boy and the man protect themselves from the ash by wearing some kind of mask and like the first line of Radioactive they wake up to ash in the air.

Goodbye(I’m sorry), Jamestown Story It’s so hard, lost in the world confusion. And I need to leave, for a while. Life is so meaningless, there is nothing worth a smile. So goodbye, I’ll miss you. I chose this song to reflect the mothers death on page 34(on the PDF).

Back to God, Reba You gotta get down on your knees, believe Fold your hands and beg and plead Gotta keep on praying You gotta cry, rain tears of pain Pound the floor and scream His name ‘Cause we’re still worth saving I thought this song reminded me of “the fire” and what that means, We know that the man is at least somewhat religious, and we know that he believes they’re the good guys because of the fire. The man also prays during the book a couple of times when things get tough. ]

Have a Talk with God, Stevie Wonder When you feel your life’s too hard Just go have a talk with God Like song 4 this is also about talking to god, but this song isn’t really about begging for mercy. It’s more about talking to god and picking yourself back up. The man is staying alive for the boy, and when things aren’t going well he prays on it.

When the boy and the man stumble upon a bunker filled with food and supplies. There is a little hesitation from the boy. He questions if this is really ok to take. I wanted to analyze the fathers responses to these questions. First the boy asks if it’s real, and I think McCarthy kind of plays with his voice a little bit. “Oh yes. It’s real” it’s almost like he’s still in disbelief. When he continues his sentence it’s like he knows that the boy might question why it’s there or if it’s even ok to take. He says “It’s here because somebody thought it might be needed” and when the boy asks “But they didn’t get to use it” and asks if it’s okay for them to take the dad says “They would want us to. Just like we would want them to”. He speaks for the dead and later gives the good guy treatment to them. They are good because they died and left all this for us. They are good because we got an advantage from their misfortune.

Hello and welcome to my second lit log for The Road!!!!1!1!!!!! Today I will be counting down my top 5 favorite The Road songs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All of these songs were handpicked by me because I think that they do a good job of representing the book or because they are about roads!!!!

Number 5 - On the Road Again

On the Road Again by Willie Nelson is a pretty good song, enjoyable listen, but it’s held back by how it isn’t sad enough for the book. It gives off too many good vibes. The parts that do fit fit pretty well, though, because the man and boy go back on the road several times. One way to look at the happy vibes is that being on the road and moving forward is a positive, but I couldn’t bring myself to move this song up.

Number 4 - Highway to the Danger Zone

Highway to the Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins is pretty good for the book, at least certain parts. It’s very high energy and points out how much danger they are going towards, and just generally how dangerous the world of The Road is. The reason this song couldn’t go higher is that it’s just too mechanical in its lyrics, its too much about revving engines and the like. Also, while it does invoke a sense of excitement, its a little too positive for such a sad book.

Number 3 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day hits the sad part of The Road just right, but also has parts in it that reflect the high paced action that can take place in the book. It also does a very good job with reflecting the loneliness of the desolate world of The Road. The problem is that it’s too good at reflecting that loneliness, being all about being completely and utterly alone, which doesn’t really fit with the man being with the boy.

Number 2 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver actually does a very spot on job of describing the journey of the man and the boy. They travel along the old roads left from the old world, and all along their journey, the man is going to places he’s been, remembering the past. This is things like his house, but also the city, the ocean, and more. They travel a road that the man knows and is, in a sense “taking him home.” The song even has reference to a woman calling to the protagonist, and the singer “having a feeling he should’ve been home yesterday,” prefectly reflecting the man’s dreams, and also his miscalculations when measuring their travels. This song is basically perfect for the book, other than not quite being sad enough.

Number 1 - Life is a Highway

Life is a Highway by John Cochrane is actually just a perfect descriptor of anything ever and anyone who disagrees is objectively wrong. In a more serious sense, this song connects with what I believe the road represents in the book, not just what it literally is. The road is life, it is survival, and it is the plot. The man and the boy can’t keep going forward and living without the road.

That was my top 5 favorite The Road songs!!!!!1!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!! If you like this lit log please make sure to like and subscribe and retweet and share and save and

For my lit log I decided to make a soundtrack based on what we’ve read so far in “The Road”

For my lit log, I decided to make a map of the man and the boys journey so far. Enjoy!

Oisin Hyland December 1, 2022 Giknis

In “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, the author uses multiple different literary techniques to keep the reader interested and captivated. From the symbolism, imagery, and vocabulary used, McCarthy utilizes these techniques to encapsulate the fast-moving and action-packed nature of the story.
One of the earliest signs of these techniques is on page 23 where both the man and the boy find a supermarket on the outskirts of the city, the narrator states, “They went back through the store again looking for another cart but there were none. By the door were two soft drink machines that had been tilted over into the floor and opened with a pry bar. Coins everywhere in the ash. He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca-Cola.” After finding the Coke the Man gives it to the boy saying, “It's a treat. For you.” Eventually, the boy asks, “It's because I won't ever get to drink another one, isn't it?”, the man responds “Ever's a long time.” McCarthy chose to use Coca-Cola as a piece of symbolism due to how renowned a can of Coke is in today's society. The idea of a boy not knowing what the drink is, symbolizes to the readers how far removed the characters are from the world that we live in today. It would be unheard of for a kid in 2022 to not know what a Coke is. 
In addition to McCarthy's use of symbolism, he uses bleak and dim imagery or vocabulary to set the mood of “The Road''. On page 78 he writes, “The water buckled boards sloping away into the yard. Soggy volumes in a bookcase. He took one down and opened it and then put it back. Everything is damp. Rotting. In a drawer, he found a candle. No way to light it. He put it in his pocket. He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.” McCarthy specifically chose to use words like, sloping, soggy, damp, rotting, gray light, darkness, and sorrow to make sure the reader feels where the book takes place, a post-apocalyptic, lawless world. If McCarthy was to not use this selection of words throughout the story, the reader would simply not understand the world he was trying to create. 
Cormac McCarthy’s use of symbolism, imagery, and vocabulary plays a major part in the way that readers see his 2007 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, “The Road”. He does an excellent job of using these literary devices to better display and illustrate his book in a way that not many other authors do. 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the story of how humanity operates on a desolate earth. It follows two characters The man and the boy throughout their journey to the south, they encounter other survivors and deal with their own morals and humanity. However, all of these themes are enhanced by McCarthy’s writing techniques such as imagery, sentence structure, and symbolism. These devices allow the reader to immerse themselves in the dull world.

One reoccurring device that is used in The Road Is imagery. When readers first open the book they are bombarded with descriptions of sights, scents and sounds. McCarthy writes “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none.” Just on the first page McCarthy allows readers to experience what the characters are living through and adds to the posthumous condition of nature and civilization.

Another writing technique that shines through is McCarthy's use of sentence structure. Throughout the story he coveys the complicated state of human relationships thriving through dire situations in this unique writing style. This is seen when the man and boy are resting after their journey and the boy inquires about mortality. “ Can I ask you something? he said. Yes. Of course. Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now. And we're still going south. Yes. So we'll be warm. Yes. Okay. Okay what? Nothing. Just okay. Go to sleep. Okay. I'm going to blow out the lamp. Is that okay? Yes. That's okay. And then later in the darkness: Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course you can. What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too.

So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay.” The first noticeable feature of the dialogue is the spacing. When conversations are had between the two characters it’s isolated from the rest of the text. This contrasts the to-the-point nature of how the talk goes to show the importance and meaning of their exchange though the nature of their speech. Another standout feature is the lack of quotation marks this allows the conversation to seamlessly flow back into imagery as to show that the characters are still on edge though talking. This allows readers to feel the tenseness in the dialogue and builds to the apocalyptic environment.

Lastly, McCarthy uses symbolism to portray the inner feelings of the characters. In a world with little substance McCarthy makes readers look closer and make connections like the duo they are following. We see this use of symbolism in the man’s refusal to dwell in dreams. “In dreams his pale bride came to him out of a green and leafy canopy. Her nipples pipeclayed and her rib bones painted white. She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up in combs of ivory, combs of shell. Her smile, her downturned eyes. In the morning it was snowing again. Beads of small gray ice strung along the light-wires overhead. He mistrusted all of that. He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death. He slept little and he slept poorly. He dreamt of walking in a flowering wood where birds flew before them he and the child and the sky was aching blue but he was learning how to wake himself from just such siren worlds. Lying there in the dark with the uncanny taste of a peach from some phantom orchard fading in his mouth. He thought if he lived long enough the world at last would all be lost. Like the dying world the newly blind inhabit, all of it slowly fading from memory.” This symbolic passage allows readers to understand the man’s feelings of faltering without explicit dialogue. The author chooses dreams to sybomlize the man’s fantasies of color and peace and how it contrasts his reality around him. It also allows the reader to explore the cause of the man’s stoic nature due to rejecting this false sense of happiness. This allows McCarthy to focus on the apocalypse portion of the story without explicitly stating the feelings of characters.

When writing this story McCarthy uses all of these features come together to create an experience that readers can immerse themselves into and reflect on how humanity can shine through even the apocalypse.