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McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 292

Posted by Tomy Fleurine in Being Human - Giknis - B on

The passage below is what I have imagined was cut from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road before the final edition was released.


Creative Piece:


The boy and his brand new friend went into the yard to play. There was so much dust. Not a typical playground. They got so caught up in having fun that they didn’t even notice how dirty their faces were getting. The boy’s friend hit him and ran away. The boy started to chase him and followed him into the woods. He started to be surrounded by the rancid smell of death but didn’t let that bother him. All he could think about was finding his friend. For a brief moment he even forgot all about the man.




Hello? Where are you?




The boy kept wandering about through the woods. While running he stumbled upon something and ultimately fell on it. He felt the thing. It was a person.




I found you!




The boy didn’t hear an answer. When he took a closer look he realized that the body was a dead body of a stranger. He quickly pushed himself off the body. He started running away from the woods and back towards the house, but he remembered something. His friend was still alone in the woods. He wondered. Is he okay? I can’t just leave him. I have to help him. He could be in trouble. The boy stopped. He thought for a little while. He then turned around and walked back through the woods. He wanted to find his friend.


Written Rationale :



Throughout the book, the boy’s character has been praised very often. Every time a decision had to be made, the boy always seemed to help the man make the right choice or at least present the man with the right choice. They boy seemed to be the smarter, more loving, and most importantly more integre person in the book. He never wanted to hurt anyone nor allow anyone to suffer before his eyes. He would always ask the man to either bring someone with them or feed someone. He would also often ask his dad if they’re the good people. He had to make sure he was doing the right thing at all times. He was like the representation of God on earth, the man’s only reason for living. My creative piece is an addition to the book. It is what I think would happen if the author didn’t end the book the way that he did. It would be inserted on page 292. The boy has always wanted to have a friend his age. When he saw the other little boy, he was so excited that he was willing to run after him. He just wanted to talk to him and have fun like a regular boy. It was pretty clear that he never had an experience like that before and he was dying for that to happen.

 My piece would not be inserted right after the book ended because the boy would need time to become close to his friend and the rest of the group in order for my scene to happen. The adults would need to trust the boy for them to be able to play in the yards unattended in a dangerous world like that. That particular day, the other boy decided wrongly to run into the woods. The boy, as smart as he is, also made the wrong decision and followed his into the woods. He knows better but he wasn’t thinking straight as he is after all just a boy and when boys are playing games they aren’t thinking straight. The boy did not want to leave his friend even after he fell on a dead body. There are several reason one being because he wasn’t as spooked about dead bodies anymore and two being that he was very integre and he wanted the good of everyone around him.

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 78

Posted by Mitchell Berven-Stotz in Being Human - Giknis - B on

In a world where I wrote The Road instead of Cormac McCarthy, the following scene would have been included:


The boy played in the creek as the man got the fire started. The red ash joined the grey, making the ashfall denser. This was safe ash, warmth. The boy stumbled out of the water, shivering. The man dried him off with a blanket and put it besides the fire as the boy crawled over.

Papa.

What is it?

It’s time for me to sleep?

Yes, it’s time for you to sleep.

Can you tell me a story first?

I’ll tell you a story first.

Thank you Papa.

What kind of story do you want to hear.

One with colors.

The man sat for a minute and thought. Color wasn’t a concern, not something to think about. The light from the flames dusted a can of peas.

Have I ever told you the story of the green giant?

No.

Alright. The green giant lived in a bright field of yellow corn. The sun glowed orange from the clear, blue sky. One day, as the giant was sleeping, he heard a cry from a tree. Up in the tree, sat a pink cat. “Are you alright?” the giant asked. “No, I’m stuck. Will you help me down?” The giant lifted the cat out of the tree. “There you are friend.” The cat flashed the giant a white smile. The two lived their days out together.

Papa?

Yes.

If we saw someone stuck, would we help them?

I told you a story. Now sleep.

Would we?

No, the man thought.

Goodnight.


Below you will find the thoughts and rationale behind the decisions and concepts that went into the scene.

While reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I was struck by the discussion the man and boy have about stories. The man makes a comment about how he has run out of happy stories. I decided to have my piece depict a scene where the man tells the boy a story. A story, and a happy one at that, is a way for the man to show that he is more than his steely exterior. The boy allows him to show this inner warmth. I focused on showing this in the man’s characterization. This falls in line with a recurrent theme throughout the book, a focus on the bond between this man and his son, how warmth is created in a world of complete emotional coldness. I structured this scene around McCarthy’s use of cold, clear dialogue. This motif of his creates an almost unnerving contrast between the story and the scene itself. I also featured dialogue to show that this is where the boy gets his information, where he learns about the world.

However warm and caring these elements of the scene are, this is still The Road. And the road is a very dark place, where survival is the only true necessity. I used this scene to foreshadow the many moments when the man would be put into a situation that involved fleeing from people in need. The man is, in some ways, a hypocrite. He instills these survival methods and mindsets into the boy through this concept of good vs evil. The story I have the man tell represents the good that he wants the boy to see in the world, but I make sure to show that the man is not actually planning to focus on that. This is supported by my placement of the scene. It occurs shortly before the boy encounters the other little boy in the city, and, even more importantly, the bunker of human meat. These are two events that defy the values that the man is trying to instill in the boy. The Road has us ponder what truly makes someone good.

The scene works on three levels. The innermost level is that of the boy and the story, where the boy is both warmed by the fire and the affection that his father gives him. The middle level has to do with the man’s questionable morality. And the outermost level is that of the McCarthy-en atmosphere. It is dark, a fire is the only source of light, and the pair are surrounded by a constant “ashfall”, an oppressive, warped version of the rain we take for granted. These levels are what, when combined, form The Road.​

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 130

Posted by Leo Levy in Being Human - Giknis - B on

​ Excerpt 

He came across her while stumbling through the woods one night, looking for nothing. He hadn’t wanted to wake the child with his coughing, and out in the darkness he’d nearly stepped on her head. Somehow she hadn’t woken. In the thick darkness, she had become one more insensate log or fungiform growth on the forest floor. She seemed to have built herself a home in the glade. A rickety lean-to huddled against the nearest oak. A firepit smoldered nearby, and he wondered how they hadn’t spotted the column from their camp. He thought he could smell something else though, something that brought saliva flooding into his parched mouth. Next to the embers sat an old ammo canister, baring a belly full of salted meat. This time, he woke the boy. Reaching out to find him, the man let his ragged nails rasp against his sallow cheek. Thin enough to break your heart. Wake up, he whispered. I found something. When the boy smelled the meat, he cried. The man mistook it for gratitude, and swelled with pride, but the boy’s tears were bitter. Where did you get this? he demanded. 
I found it. A campsite nearby. 
What did you do to them? 
Nothing. I found it. 
You killed them! 
No. No, I just took the meat. 
I know. You killed them. 
We’re starving. 
Take it back. 
We could die. The fire could go out. 
It’d go out either way. Take it back. 

Rationale 

A significant part of the moral philosophy that the protagonists of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road use to distinguish themselves from “bad guys” is concerned with property. Several times throughout the book, the man and boy imply that, because the do not steal, they are moral. On page 162, the man indignantly tells Ely that they are not robbers, and on 145, they choose to thank the original owners of the miraculous bunker. This stance is rarely tested though. In the whole book, they never come across a character in possession of something valuable, who could be taken advantage of. I chose to put them in such a situation, because their differing reactions would illustrate a major theme/essential question of the book; in a post-societal world, what good is morality? I placed my excerpt in the period of the duo’s most severe starvation, before they find the bunker. This would give the man a reason to act somewhat amorally to protect the boy, which is consistent with character traits revealed later in the book. In this way, the passage foreshadows the moral decline he experiences shortly before his death. This placement, soon after their encounter with the mansion cannibals on pages 107-115, would also leave the boy seriously concerned with the morality of his actions. I also chose to make the boy the voice of morality, and the man the voice of pragmatism, since these are the roles McCarthy establishes for them elsewhere in the book. In the bunker scene, the man’s first thought is to fill their bellies, while the boy pauses to give thanks. The boy advocates for both Ely, on page 162, and the thief, on page 256, despite the dangers they pose. He is almost like the man’s externalized conscience. Finally, I decided to let the boy win their argument. This was respectful of the conclusions McCarthy seems to find in this philosophical treatise disguised as a novel. Just by letting the boy survive this grisly tale, McCarthy shows us that he believes in the perpetuation of ethics. He seems convinced that morality is the defining characteristic of humanity, and that rejecting earthly desires in favor of higher ideals is, for lack of a better phrase, being human .

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 53

Posted by Greta Haskell in Being Human - Giknis - B on

I added a personal touch of the Man's thoughts to the book to help readers understand some of his rational and decision making further along in the book, and also to get a little more connected to the character. 

Creative Piece:


...wished them godspeed till they were gone. He never heard them again.


The Man often thought about that day. It was the last day he remembered hope. He never told the Boy about the birds for the fear he might be even more disappointed with the everygrey world. Where did the birds go? Where they even there in the first place or did he just imagine them. He thought the birds must be with the Woman. Somewhere warm and peaceful. Or was he wrong? He didn’t know what to think. He wished the birds were a message from God. Something to tell them they were all right, that everything would one day be good. If the birds could survive that far so could they. Yet they hadn’t seen a bird since. He thought their raspy calls could be the Woman calling out to them. But he never heard that sound anymore so was it just goodbye? If God was really there why would he taunt them like this, thought the man. He liked to sit and think about it but he couldn’t think too hard as to alarm the boy. The birds were just the fingertips of God dragging all the color out of the sky as he waved so long for the last time.



Rationale:


In this scene you get to see a hidden, deeper side of the Man. You can see emotions and deep thought from him and his curiosity with religion. I chose to place this piece in this section of the book because symbolism in this book was huge and when I read about the birds flying over and the man never seeing them again it made me think about how birds were literally the highest beings as they could fly, they were closest to God. That made me think that the birds represented God’s presence, or anti-presence in the book. I chose the theme of God and religion because I wanted to hint at the question that I asked myself the most while reading this book. “Why are they still going?” I wanted to see inside of the Man’s head and see how he felt about this hard journey and if there was still positivity in his head. I think that religion was a quiet but pushing force in why the Man tried so hard to keep himself and the Boy alive. I had the Man reflect on this experience because I wanted to leave the readers with something to think about for the rest of the book because McCarthy never really addresses this subject again and I think it is more helpful to understand some of the Man’s future decisions in the book. Another question to me was “Is there a God?” referring to the Man. So I wanted to answer that so that the reader could get a good look into the Man and his past personality. In my creative piece I used the word “evergrey” as a touch to their surroundings. They are in the woods, surrounded by trees that used to be green but are no longer. Now everything is dull and grey so instead of “evergreen” like an evergreen tree I changed it to evergrey as a sense that the world around them and likely never changing, as evergreen trees are always green. The reason I chose this passage to be about the man is because The man is the one who speculates the most about God in the book so I think it is appropriate that these be his thoughts.

Mccarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 220

Posted by Felix D'Hermillon in Being Human - Giknis - B on

The Passage that I have created below is a passage that I have written and feel that could have partook a role in the plot of this book. It examines the man and the boy talking briefly about the mother, but it dives more into the symbolism of her leaving them, and


Creative Piece

The man was beginning to drift off to rest.

Papa?

Yes.

What was she like?

Who?

Mama.

The man was silent.

Well…?

Why do you ask?

I heard you mutter her name when you were resting.

Go to sleep.

Okay.


The man woke up before the boy. He salvaged what was left of the fire to prepare their breakfast. The boys eyes creaked open only to find the somber beach he drifted off on.

Papa?

Yes?

You never answered my question.

The man handed the boy the boy his meal. Here eat this.

The boy stood up frustrated. He slapped the food out of his hand. Why won’t you tell me?!

Damnit. The man shouted. You really want to know about her!?

Yes. Shouted the boy.

She was a quitter! She left us for dead. There are two kinds of people in this ashen world we live in. There are the people that have hope and don’t.

Okay.

There are people that aren’t afraid to fight for what you have. Those people are the ones that make it. All you are is a hopeless wanderer trapped in the obscurity of the never ending grey shadow of the bezaleel. Do you understand what I am saying?

No.

What I am trying to say is never give up. You’re the last of all our hope. Always carry the fire. You’re the last of the good guys.

Okay.

What about you Papa?

What?

Are you a good guy?

I don't know.

Okay



Rationale


So, what I decided to address the theme in this book of “Good Guys, and Bad Guys” and the idea of “not giving up. I chose to address the idea of good guys and bad guys specifically because I felt like I would be able to achieve that from the scene where the man remembers when he was dreaming about his wife. This scene stuck out to me because I wanted to write more about the man’s wife just because I felt like she wasn’t mentioned enough in the book, but I chose this one specifically because it was closer to the end, and there had been more controversy that had occurred in the book, and the father had built up a relationship more with his son that the reader would be able to see and understand some of the references that I made in the passage. The scene from the book that I wrote about was right after the scene of the boy and the man on the beach and the boy had gone swimming. He comes out and they are sitting by the fire. This scene was supposed to be a “don’t poke the bear” scene. For the majority of the book, the father had managed to keep his cool with the boy, but in this one I wanted it to show another side to the man. The boy asked his father a couple of questions about his mom, and the man sent him signals not to ask, but the boy still asked.

I chose several motifs to represent this book, in my passage because the book itself is filled with them and there are so many juicy ones that you could choose from and honestly I couldn’t decide between them. Since this scene is happening between the father and the son, I wanted to use the motif “Okay” because that is a common word that is used a ton between the two of them when there is simply nothing else to say in conversation. They have become numb. “Okay” is symbolic of how they communicate. Another motif that I choose to write about was the one that was addressing the greyness that surrounds them. Mccarthy throughout the whole book is always addressing how neutral and gloomy the world is, and so I thought it couldn’t be a real scene from the book, if there was no “grey” reference. And in all of this grey, there was the fire which is supposed to be symbolic of hope. This is what the boy is supposed to be carrying inside his heart, and he should never let it sizzle out (words from his father)

There was one word that I specifically chose to use which was “bezaleel”. This word means chief architect of the tabernacle. I worded this sentence as another motif/theme to make reader question if there truly was a God not in our world, but their world. Since the reader is following the mand and the boy through the book, we tend to take their side. The man has lost his fire or hope in all religion whatsoever and he is not going to let the boy lose his fire in hope for survival.

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 247

Posted by Avery Monroe in Being Human - Giknis - B on

​The passage below is a scene that I think could have been in McCarthy's The Road.

He let the boy go as this was the last time he would see or touch him. He watched them walk away until the light no longer lit their way. Darkness absorbed them. The man sat and wept until he he had nothing left. He drifted in and out of sleep until morning, when he knew he had to get up and get moving.


He packed everything, put it all in his bag, and started on his way. The man slowly sauntered down the cold and bare dark road. There was a noise coming from up the road. It sounded like a little boy. His little boy. The man didn’t have much energy but he used all that was in him to run towards the sound. There was laughing, and the sound of joyfulness, he could hear it in the distance.


Papa, come here!


The sound of his son's voice made him happy, he ran closer to the sound, but couldn’t find it, it sounded like it was getting further and further away. The happiness in his son’s voice turned into sadness, then to the faint sound of a cry. He finally came upon something, something that was not the boy. It was something he almost recognized. In the man's fugue state he saw the boy’s mother as a chimera, more charybdis than woman.


The man woke with tears streaming down his face, his heart beating fast, and his son calling him to get up.



Below is the rational to show why I made the decisions in my scene:

The character I wanted to mainly focus on in my creative piece was the man and how it would be for him to be without his son. I think the only reason the man tries everyday is so that he can be there for the little boy and help him so that he can survive. When I was deciding what I would make happen to the boy I remembered that his mother did mention taking him at one point in the story in a memory that the man has. I felt that if I had the boys mom take the boy it would make it more interesting than him dying. When thinking of a place to put this I decided I wanted to put it in the part of the book where the little boy is sick. I did this because I knew that the would be worrying about his son, and he would always be thinking about it, even subconsciously. The McCarthy-esque word that I decided to use was Chimera. This word means something that can be hoped for or not, but it happens many times in dreams because it is often times a fantasy that we have. I thought this was very fitting for the situation since this was a dream and he really wanted to see his son again.

When picking a theme for my creative piece, I chose family and loneliness. I wanted to pick them because the boy is his son, and without him he doesn’t really have anything to live for anymore. The man’s son was such a huge part of everything that went on in the book, I feel like family is really important. For the motifs of my added scene of the book, I chose to use fear and dreams. I chose to do a dream because we know this clearly couldn’t have really happened or the story would have been totally different, and also because I wanted to show the fear he would have without having his son and then get to wake up and realize it was just a dream. I chose fear and survival because I wanted to show the fear he has without his son. Lastly, my essential question was very obvious for me after I finished everything else. I did “who/what do we live for? What if it is gone?” the boy was taken from the man and it clearly really hurt him. I wanted to use this question because I feel like it is really interesting and really important as well. It is important in this book and it also really applies to real life which made it even more interesting to me. I think that a lot of the things that I did for my story seemed to fall into place perfectly to create something I am proud of.

McCarthy Unabridged: Page 166

Posted by Nebil Ibrahim in Being Human - Giknis - B on

The passage below is how I imagined a flashback to what it was like as the apocalypse started.

The newscaster spoke in a voice of deep concern and sincerity as if he were your a part of my family and at that moment it seemed like everyone was. It was a lie though. Not intentional, but subconscious. Everyone would turn at a moment’s notice on others, but no one realized it in the moment other than the man. The man was always suspicious of others, but his paranoia peaked with the arrival of the apocalypse.


Because of the current falling ash, the young and elderly are advised to stay inside. It is estimated that millions will die from the effects of the ash. Some people have decided not to take the advice and are out on the road traveling towards the coast. Since gas prices have soared all are expected to do so by foot.


While the man is watching the wife comes in the room.


We have to have a plan.

For what?

When everyone turns on each other.

That won’t happen we just need to stay inside.

It will. In a few months or so when they realize the road isn’t safe.


The unwantedlyrecent ash built higher and higher as the weeks turned to months. The situation only worsened. The news now reported an estimated thirty percent of the country dead and no stop in sight. To the man, it was evident from the beginning he would have to adapt to the new lifestyle and his paranoia was key to the family’s safety.

Here is my rationale as to why and what I feel this section this section would add to the novel

I chose to place this section to when the man was talking to Eli because the man was trying to get some answers just like the reader was to all of the ambiguities surrounding how they were in this current situation. I put it in specifically where the man asked what happened to the world, “The man said, ‘Tell us where the world went.’ Eli replied, ‘What?’” (166) A flashback was the most appropriate way to give a sense of exactly how the situation developed into what it is up to when the man asks Eli. One of the big ideas that I wanted to get across by writing this section is giving an answers as to what exactly happened before to cause all of this. I found it important to say what happened to the people, exactly what they tried to do, and where they tried to go. I actually ended up avoiding answering one of my main essential questions which was, “What exactly caused the apocalypse?” I found it difficult to choose between a volcanic eruption and nuclear explosion, but I saw that the reason that McCarthy does not say what happened is probably because it does not matter. The point of keeping the apocalypse ambiguous was to instill a kind of fear in the reader that makes them think it could be anything that caused the apocalypse and that frankly it does not matter how the apocalypse started, but only the result.

I wanted their to be some sort of characterization in the man that tied in with the theme of paranoia and explains where it came from since there is not much about his behavior before the apocalypse. I made him paranoid because it fit in to say that his paranoia during the course of the novel was heightened by the advent of the apocalypse. Similar to giving some kind of backstory as to why he is how he now, I also wanted to address how ash is seen as a symbol of desolation and death. I include the ash in a way that makes its appearance and abundance correlate to the severity of the situation and the death toll.

My McCarthy-esque word is “unwantedlyrecent”. The word fits in with one of the themes which is that all of the things the man tries to forget are the ones he remembers the most. The fact that all of the events are actually recent and currently taking place to when he is reflecting on them during the flashback serves to emphasize why he is so paranoid and the word makes it clear that he struggles to put these memories in the back of his mind.

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 3

Posted by Naomi Fecher-Davis in Being Human - Giknis - B on

The segment below is what I think was cut from the beginning of, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in editing.


Why? he asked

You’ll be safe there

You don’t know that.

I grew up there. Some of my family might still be there

The man looked out the window he saw the sun faint in the distance like something that is about to go away forever. There was no clear answer to where they might go. The south is warm but the west is empty. No threat there or at least that is what he could make out. There was no direct source of news just half a paper article floating down to the darkening ground.

The boy wont last long enough to get all the way south

The boy will do as you ask, he will respond to how you treat him. So treat him harsh but explain yourself.

A sound came from outside. You say it like you wont be there. The ground shakes, the house shakes, the table shakes. Everything is still.

We’ll see

It is not safe here anymore. Pack your stuff we are leaving.

The two of them, man and wife, pack as much as they can into a small cart. They are quite so to not disturb the boy sleeping. Only the most important things would make the journey. Canned foods. Blankets. A tarp. A pistol.


This is my rationale for why I chose this segment for this project.


In the story The Road a man and his son walk down a long road, seemingly to nowhere, until tail end. At the end it is revealed that their plan was always to head south, but there is no explanation for why. I thought it would be helpful to the reader to have insight as to why they choose to go south. For this segment I brought in a character that was not often referenced in the book, the boy’s mother. By having the mother tell them to go south it gives a logical reason as to why they are continuing south, through this connection wouldn’t be made until later when the reader learns that the mother is dead. I chose to include the mother giving the man parenting advice to build the character of the father. It gives more personality to the parenting decisions he makes further along in the story. It was important that there still be an obvious divide between the woman, and the man and the boy.  I wanted to foreshadow their relationship and hint at the boy and man being alone on the road from the very beginning.

In the story there is the lingering question of why are they on this road? My segment, placed at the beginning gives a rational end destination. It makes it logical that they would choose to go to the south even though they have no idea what is waiting for them at that destination. They travel down this long road with out question in their mind that this is the way they are supposed to be going. I thought even though the mother did not have a prominent role in the story, she would be the perfect explanation for the decision. In McCarthy’s writing there is a lack of women’s roles. Inkeeping with that I wanted to foreshadow the woman’s absence as well as have her be vague as to not contradict any other part of the story.


McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 281

Posted by Tobi Hahn in Being Human - Giknis - B on

I speculate that Cormac McCarthy could have cut this passage from page 281 of The Road before it was published.

The boy wept. The sea churned. Everything was cold. The boy was utterly alone. He wanted his father to be there, to tell him a story - but it was impossible. There was nothing left to tell stories about. There were no more stories left. The pistol lay in his hands. The boy contemplated; he remembered what the man taught him. Hesitated. His hands shook. He’d decide tomorrow. 

It was raining. Great swells of brine wrenched themselves from the deep and broke against the frigid shore. More thought, more hesitation. Why continue when failure is assured? But miracles could happen, and had. He was carrying the fire, after all. Sometimes help came by opening the doors he was most afraid of.

Night. The plenilune moon cast a sterile glare across the frozen earth. The boy dreamt. He imagined that the man was walking along the beach, with everyone - Ely, the dog, the thief, and the other boy - in tow. He woke up.

It was early. The sun had just begun its slow ascent. The boy looked at the pistol. He made up his mind. Sobbed. The man was gone. They were still carrying the fire. The boy walked towards the road.


The following rationale explains why I wrote the passage in the way that I did.

This “missing scene” from The Road is placed on page 281, after the death of the man. I chose this placement because of the large gap in the timeline of the story at this point. After the boy wakes up and finds the man dead, he mourns him. The story then skips ahead three days to when the boy is found by the veteran. This gap has potential for a great amount of reflection and contemplation by the boy. The central conflict in this passage is whether the boy will take his own life or not. On page 113, the man teaches the boy how to put the gun in his mouth and shoot himself if necessary. The boy knows that this is an option, so he considers it seriously.
In this passage, the boy must decide whether he is going to continue carrying the fire or give up. Carrying the fire, and by extension perseverance in the face of difficult and frightening obstacles, is a major theme of The Road. In the passage, I mention that “Sometimes help came by opening the doors he was most afraid of.” This is a reference to the motif of doors in The Road. Doors can lead the man and boy to horrors like the room filled with people to be eaten on page 110 or miracles like the bunker on page 137, but they can never know what’s behind a door until they open it. Before the man opens either one of the aforementioned doors, the boy begs him not to open them. However, the man understands that no matter what terrors might lie behind them, they need to open every door - they have no chance of survival otherwise. In my passage, the boy realizes this. He knows that survival will not be comfortable or easy, but that it’s necessary because he’s carrying the fire.
The reference to stories in the first paragraph of the scene is a reflection of an earlier scene in The Road. On page 267, the man is trying to get the boy to talk to him. He offers to tell the boy a story, but the boy declines. Now that the man is gone, the boy wishes that he could tell him a story. 
My McCarthy-esque word was “plenilune.” This word describes the full moon. It was not used in The Road, and adds to the characterization of the moon here. The moon is a mysterious celestial body that is unfathomable to the boy. Plenilune is a seldom-heard word that sounds mysterious and full, just like the moon in this passage.

McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 272

Posted by Gina Sorgentoni in Being Human - Giknis - B on

Lets stay here for the night, Papa

We haven’t traveled very far today

I know

It could be dangerous

I know, Papa

We need to keep going

No.


The man turned around to see the boy setting up the tarp. The man walked to the boy with a limp to return the tarp to the cart, the boy grabbed the tarp from out of his hands. The man coughed until he couldn’t stand, the boy made a tent from the tarp and started a fire, he covered the man in a blanket and sat down next to him.


The man sat silently and eventually fell asleep. The boy stayed for a moment before going to see what was down the road. He took the gun from the man and walked towards the Road, he saw a small town in the distance. On the way back the boy gathered some brush and wood for the fire. Out of the suffocating darkness he heard his father calling out. The boy returned, the man livid with anger. The fire slowly began to burn out.


Where did you go, where is the gun?

I have it

Why did you take it

I went to go see what was down the road, and to go get more wood for the fire

I dont want you going anywhere without me

You were sleeping

I know

But the fire was going to go out, you would have froze

I don’t care. You cant go anywhere without me.






One of the motifs in this passage was the fire. Both the fire the man sets up at the camps, and the fire he and the boy carry within themselves. As the man gets closer to his death his fire begins to go out. He loses whatever morals he had, becomes angry and bitter. The boy goes to get more firewood, because he knows how important it is to keep the flame light. And despite any fears the boy may have, he risks going down the road on his own to keep that fire going. Throughout the book is it clear that the boy’s fire is brighter than the man’s.

In this passage I wanted to highlight the man’s protectiveness of the boy. The man wants to boy to know how to survive without him there. Yet at the same time the man doesn’t want to see the boy become independent of him, since the boy is his reason to fight to stay alive. After he see’s that the boy can take care himself the man has to grapple with the fact that the boy can survive without the man. The boy is the man’s reason for living. Knowing that the boy is at an age where he doesn’t need someone to take care of him, the man slowly loses his reason to stay alive. The man fights for their survival throughout the entire book. It is his nature to feel the need to always protect the boy, even if he doesn’t necessarily need said protection. There is a fine line between being protective of his son and being over protective, preventing his son from doing anything on his own. This could make life more difficult for the boy after the man is gone and end up hurting the boy. One of the motifs I decided to use was surviving on the road without a companion. The man worries about what the boy will be like on the road on his own. He fears that the boy will hurt himself and end up like the lightening struck man, will he lose his morals to survive, or only survive with the help from others just like Eli. This fear only makes the man more protective and unintentionally harmful to the boy.



HUMAN-1

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2015-16.S1

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