The Narration In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

The novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is about a man and his son’s survival in a post-apocalyptic world. For the majority of the novel, the man and the boy are the only characters, leading to an abundance of dialogue. It is that dialogue as well as the narration from the author that make up the novel as a whole. But there is a stark difference between the narration and the dialogue with the dialogue being simple and the narration being complex. Despite the extreme contrast between the two, the narration and dialogue combined are able to hold thematic importance in the novel. The first way McCarthy communicates to the reader in the novel is through his narration. The narrative provides a detailed insight into the world around the two characters with a focus on the man.

With dialogue as simple as few word responses and narration as complex as a paragraph on a location’s description the difference is hard to miss. But what do they do with their difference in regards to the novel? They do what the other cannot. The narration and the dialogue both have roles as different as their language, while the narration provides immersion and deep thinking, the dialogue provides an understanding of the characters and the world. Without one or the other, the novel would not have the same effect on the reader. The difference between the dialogue and the narrative is clear and important, but it also gives a message for the reader from McCarthy. What McCarthy is trying to tell all the readers with the contrasting dialogue and narration is that neither is a bad way to write. The dialogue which is simple and to the point is also very informative and the narration which is complex and elongated to extreme degrees is elegant and thought-provoking. McCarthy shows the reader that two writing styles that would be seen as bad at first can be made to work perfectly to fit the theme of a novel through The