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Definition of Mood
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect of a piece of writing... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes in the reader. Every aspect... read full definition
The mood of a piece of writing is its general atmosphere or emotional complexion—in short, the array of feelings the work evokes... read full definition
Pages 1-29
Explanation and Analysis:
In keeping with its subject matter, The Road cuts a dark and despairing mood. The apocalypse has not only upended the earth but destroyed all that previously held meaning. The “wall of smog” lingers on the horizon and “burnt” cities ominously loom, and in its account of this new world the novel mourns for the loss of the old one. McCarthy repeatedly appeals to these desolate surroundings in order to point towards a deeper, nihilistic absence of joy and meaning:
Lying there in the dark with the uncanny taste of 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.
The Road recalls past pleasures and watches helplessly as they disappear. This continuous contrast between past and present sustains an uncomfortable sense of melancholy, while vivid descriptions elsewhere call attention to the harrowing realities of this ravaged planet. When not attending to the “charred human infant headless and gutted” or the “wet gray flakes twisting and falling,” “The Road” looks out at the world with a dreary flatness, depressingly devoid of wonder: “it was very cold.”
In spite of its bleak resignation, the novel displays a care for the characters’ survival. The Road laments the world in which its characters find themselves, but also supplies enough interest and suspense to sustain the story. The reader roots for both the man and the boy, even in the face of their many adversities and the steep odds stacked against them. The characters encounter tense confrontations, fevers, horrors, and theft—testing the limits of survival but managing to overcome each time. As difficult as life may be, the story—like its characters themselves—finds purpose in “carrying the fire.”
A work so grounded in apocalypse even manages to land on a note of optimism by its end. After the man dies, the boy gets taken in by a family who teaches him to “talk to God” while the narrator settles into a stirring reflection on trout:
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.
The rich lyricism of this conclusion seemingly lifts the heaviness that had occupied much of the novel. This moment recalls the man’s earlier memories of gathering firewood with his uncle, as though to suggest that his memories still survive. Something about the “maps and mazes” of the patterned trout endures, and these vivid descriptions speak to a sense of promise and hope. Done in small offerings, the novel’s vivid moments of beauty give room for new life.
Related Themes:
Pages 246-287
Explanation and Analysis:
In keeping with its subject matter, The Road cuts a dark and despairing mood. The apocalypse has not only upended the earth but destroyed all that previously held meaning. The “wall of smog” lingers on the horizon and “burnt” cities ominously loom, and in its account of this new world the novel mourns for the loss of the old one. McCarthy repeatedly appeals to these desolate surroundings in order to point towards a deeper, nihilistic absence of joy and meaning:
Lying there in the dark with the uncanny taste of 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.
The Road recalls past pleasures and watches helplessly as they disappear. This continuous contrast between past and present sustains an uncomfortable sense of melancholy, while vivid descriptions elsewhere call attention to the harrowing realities of this ravaged planet. When not attending to the “charred human infant headless and gutted” or the “wet gray flakes twisting and falling,” “The Road” looks out at the world with a dreary flatness, depressingly devoid of wonder: “it was very cold.”
In spite of its bleak resignation, the novel displays a care for the characters’ survival. The Road laments the world in which its characters find themselves, but also supplies enough interest and suspense to sustain the story. The reader roots for both the man and the boy, even in the face of their many adversities and the steep odds stacked against them. The characters encounter tense confrontations, fevers, horrors, and theft—testing the limits of survival but managing to overcome each time. As difficult as life may be, the story—like its characters themselves—finds purpose in “carrying the fire.”
A work so grounded in apocalypse even manages to land on a note of optimism by its end. After the man dies, the boy gets taken in by a family who teaches him to “talk to God” while the narrator settles into a stirring reflection on trout:
Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.
The rich lyricism of this conclusion seemingly lifts the heaviness that had occupied much of the novel. This moment recalls the man’s earlier memories of gathering firewood with his uncle, as though to suggest that his memories still survive. Something about the “maps and mazes” of the patterned trout endures, and these vivid descriptions speak to a sense of promise and hope. Done in small offerings, the novel’s vivid moments of beauty give room for new life.
Related Themes:
