The Road #2

I want to further my reflection of The Road because I do not feel one blog post does this brilliant novel enough justice. In this post, I want to go more in depth on the APness of The Road, and why it should be added to the curriculum. There are so many places to start when thinking of how McCarthy actually wrote the book to convey or deepen the meaning of The Road. One of the biggest things I noticed was how McCarthy intentionally skipped implementing chapters. There are several reasons I believe McCarthy took this route. The main one is the lack of chapters is symbolic of the world of The Road: there is no structure, no laws, no rules, and there is nothing left in this world that remains of what life was like before the fires.

Additionally, the lack of chapter breaks in the book contributes to the flow of The Road. Due to no chapters, the story flows easily and continuously, thus allowing the reader to work through The Road in an efficient manner. I didn’t miss chapters in this book because when I was reading it, I wanted to just keep reading. The Road allowed me to just keep reading.

Another aspect of The Road that McCarthy uses to enhance the world and meaning is the fact there are no character names, or any mention of names for that matter. This is also symbolic of the post- apocalyptic world of The Road: a world with no order. Everything that was is no longer. The missing names also leave some room for the reader to use their imagination, and are an easy way to incorporate the reader more into the novel. The relationship between the father and the son could also be studied without names.  Even without names, the two characters have an unbreakable bond with one another. There are so many points in The Road that can be analyzed in an AP way, and is why it should be added into the curriculum.