Reader's Guide for Cormac McCarthy's The Road

1. Why does Cormac McCarthy not give more details of the cataclysmic event that affected the world? Does the lack of details make the destruction of the Earth seem more or less random or arbitrary? Would an explanation of why the event happened make it easier to handle? What, if anything, does the lack of reason say about mankind’s place in and relationship with the world?

2. The voice in the novel shifts frequently.  For instance, in one paragraph the narration is in a first person voice, with the father using “I” phrases.  The very next paragraph is in a third person voice, with the narrator saying things like, “the boy looked at him.”  Does this shift in point-of-view indicate the existence of a being or an entity that knows more than the father?  Does the third person narrator have knowledge that neither the boy nor the father seem to possess?  Or, does the often difficult to distinguish voice indicate some connection between the detached narrator and the father?

3. Throughout the novel, the characters seem to draw conclusions about what constitutes a “good guy” versus a “bad guy.” What distinction, if any, does the father seem to draw between the two categories of people? What distinction does the son draw?

4. Since the title The Road implies a journey of some sort, why do you think McCarthy chose not to separate his work into chapters?  Is your perception of this journey affected by McCarthy’s unconventional use of grammar and punctuation?  If so, in what way? 

5. What is the significance of the mother’s suicide, when viewed in light of her son’s consistent tendency towards selflessness?  Is her death a selfish act?  Or, is the father’s stubborn grip on survival actually the selfish act?  Do either of these acts cast the characters in a negative light?  

6. Clearly the characters in the story are all survivors of something that has happened, so why do you think the old man, called Ely, makes the statement, “If something had happened and we were survivors and we met on the road then we’d have something to talk about. But we’re not. So we don’t”? Why would Ely not consider at least himself to be a survivor?  What does this say about survival?  Is survival merely staying alive, or does survival have a deeper connotative meaning here?

7. What do you think when of Ely’s comment that “[i]n times like these the less said the better”? Why would less talking be better in his particular circumstance, given that the father insists to the boy, “You have to talk to me.”?  Do you think the prominence of the spoken word has any significance?  Do you think the emphasis on talking between the father and son is to highlight the need for companionship or, possibly, the fear of isolation in the desolate and barren world in which the father and the boy are living? 

8. Moments in the novel seem to contain the presence of a sense of fate or destiny.  For instance, when the father goes through the barn he picks up a rusty box cutter, puts it down, and picks it back up.  Seconds later he finds a coffee can that contains new blades.  Does this moment in the novel serve as merely an author’s need to help his characters out, or is there actually some sort of providence?  Is it intuition on the part of the father or just blind luck?

9. The man and boy ward off the possibility that they could be the “bad guys” and believe that “nothing bad is going to happen” to them because they are “carrying the fire.”  What could their claim to be “carrying the fire” mean? What do you think of their reasoning that somehow they are protected because of this?

10. What do you think is the significance of the closing image of a trout with “vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming”? The closing line is, “In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”  What does it suggest about the future of the boy?  Does the end of the story present the reader with hope for a future?  Or, does the ending present the reader with hopelessness and a look back at the way things were and never will be again?

--Shreese Williams