Comparing The Writing Style In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

Examining The Road and the Writing Style through an Existentialist Lens In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, we are introduced to two nameless people traveling through a land and time unfamiliar, all of which is described to the reader in a stylistically confusing way—the reader can’t help but ask, why? Why is it so often that reading the book becomes as arduous as the journey of the main characters? After reading a page and a half of dialogue without quotation marks or reminders of who is speaking, it should be apparent that McCarthy didn’t write this way for the reader’s convenience. McCarthy writes for the reader with walking dead style and post-apocalyptic prose, with absence of backstory and guiding information, so that the brief moments of flourishing language and adjectives abound have more meaning. The writing works to supplement the underlying existentialist tones, so that we may become more connected with the story, and with the struggle to carry the fire through an unforgiving land.
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One could call into question the value of the journey—why should the Man and the Boy carry on, moreover, why should we carry on? McCarthy helps to bridge the gap between his readers and his characters through the writing style. “Dark of the invisible moon. The night now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp” (32). We see in this passage adjectives, a simile, sentences written with poetic prose. All of this reminds us of the moments away from the hellish nightmare which these characters inhabit. This passage has dark tones, certainly, but in its complexities it reminds the reader of our own lives. We have moons hardly visible and days without sun, but we carry on just as much as the characters do. This is a passage of faith, telling us we should keep moving forward regardless of the road which sets out behind