The End - 25 word response

Unjustified, Cowardly, Cliche
Frustration at disillusion
Cheap
Anticipated, yet unfitting
Creates fake contentment
Wasted opportunity
Dishonest, deflating
Abandonment  
Although, emotionally engaging
Relief, redemption
Confidence
Pivotal

Limited Pallette

‘Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more emotionally engaging.’

McCarthy’s avoidance of elaborative and emotional imagery creates a chilling result. The simplicity screams volumes, where complex, emotive language would only create a whisper. Although it may take perseverance to fully give yourself McCarthy’s style, when you do, the novel is an emotionally shattering piece of work.  

The simplistic style creating engagement is most evident in the key events of the novel. For example when the boy witnesses the baby on the spit, what he has seen and how he reacts McCarthy expresses in just four lines, just 41 words. This seems an awfully short section to portray something so gruesome and haunting; it is almost as if it is normal. But keeping it so blunt emotion is drawn out of the reader in so many more ways than if it was ‘fussy’. It creates a sense of shock; because of the blandness the reader doesn’t instantly process what he boy has seen, but when it sets in the realisation is disgusting. Leading on to think that something as shocking as seeing a ‘charred human infant headless and gutted…on a spit’ is a normality in the world in which the man and boy exist. This thought is heart-breaking, haunting and sickening. And conjures up questions to the man’s morality, the boy’s future and what is to come.  All of these questions and emotions McCarthy manages to draw out in just 41 words.

This same kind of bluntness is repeated in the death of the father, ‘….he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff. He sat there a long time weeping and then he got up and walked out through the wood to the road.’ Once again the whole passage is completed in just 6 lines. The boys acceptance to the situation is heart-breaking, initial thoughts are that he doesn’t care but the reader knows that’s not true, he is only doing what his father has taught him. Don’t dwell on the past and his obedience to his father even in death is inspiring.

The reader almost wants lengthy, finely detailed, emotional passages, to give them some kind of normality and reference to novels they have read before. But by refraining from doing this McCarthy creates even more unease. And yes due to this lack of obvious emotion, relationships between the characters and reader are harder to form, but after a period of time they are carved deeper than they would be otherwise. The reader starts to care and want protection for the man and the boy, as what is come next for them to have to deal with is unknown.

The phases less is more could be more apt here.

Disscussing an Extract

Infant on a spit – page 256

We decided to look at this extract as it is such a prominent, horrifying episode in the novel. Also when comparing it against the rest of the novel, it seems to be quite an anomaly, many things occur in this section that don’t appear anywhere else.

The main observation we made in this extract is the role reversal or change in speech. This is show through the following quotes…

·         Boy : oh Papa

Usually when the boy witnesses something distressing or evidence of the harming of others he breaks down in hysteria. However here he turns back emotionlessly to look again, as if he needs to clarify and process what the human race is capable of. The oh papa come across emotionless and cold, it is more of a way to show his father acknowledgment of what he’s seen rather than wanting comfort from him. This is a key moment in the boy’s development; he emotionally perjures, and accepts this kind of horror to be normal.

 ·         Man: what is it?

Throughout the novel it is usually the boy who is persistently asking questions. However in this extract the man is the one who is questioning. This again emphasises the loss we see in the boy, it is almost as if he does not even care enough to ask anymore. It is another example of accepting such horror as the norm.

 ·         Man : im sorry.

Once again it is the boy who is usually constantly apologising. However in this extract, with great emotion the man does. He is obviously apologising to the boy for not protecting him from witnessing the gutted infant on a spit. But also I think he is apologising for everything that has happened, and everything he knows is going to happen. The fact the boy has lost his childhood, and will never be the same again but also the fact the whole time they have both been lying to each other, he is apologising for making the boy live a life full of lies.

Cormac McCarthy's style

Goldilocks and the three bears

Once. Upon. A time. There was a girl. Dirty blonde hair hung from her head and hollowed out eyes sat in her skull. She was walking through the woods. A dense wood. Branches clawing at her body hungrily scrapping her skin furiously. But she had become use to the pain she couldn’t feel anymore. She had been walking for hours days who knews. Passing nothing. Nothing but trees. The silence had begun to roar in her ears not dulling for a moment. She hadn’t eaten for hours days who knew. But she was hungry. Starving. The path forever winding seemed to be going nowhere. She was going nowhere. For an unknown time this carried on. And on. At first she thought she was hallucinating dreaming. But she wasn’t. Roughly a mile ahead of her was a farmhouse. It looked deserted. She reached it. She knocked. Silence answered. She turned the knob with a chilling creek the door swung open. She walked right in.

The room was big. A table sat right in the middle it was wooden, it looked strong. There were bowls. Three. The girls stomach groaned in anticipation. Saliva coming alive in her mouth. She had forgotten what that felt like. She tasted the contents of the first. It was porridge. Too hot. She tasted the second bowl. Too cold. The third. Just right.
Tiredness hit the girl with a sharp slap. There was a door in the corner of the room. Open. She went through. It was the living room there were three chairs. She at carefully down in the first chair. Too big. And the next, too big. There was one left, the smallest. She sat prepared for another disappointment. But it was just right. She settled down. Her eyes drooping already knowing that she didn’t have to fight to keep them open anymore. There was a sudden gasp. The chair had broken into pieces. The girl sighed.

There was a staircase. Dragging herself heavy body up each step she reached the top. She opened a door. In the room there were three beds expensive looking blankets covering the. Exhaustion so very prominent she lay on the first bed. Too hard. The second to soft. Finally the third bed taking her time to reach weary witht eh fate of disappointment she lowered herself down. Just right. The blackest black took over her eyes her mind and her soul in an instant. She was asleep. Dreaming of home. Wherever that was.

As the girl slept the owners of the house returned. Three huge silhouettes trudging toward the door of their home. Open swinging in the chilling wind. The girl knew nothing. But the three figures did. They walked inside.