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How does McCarthy explore the use of language in
the post-apocalyptic world of the road, I the extract
where the man speaks to Ely?
Pages 181-185.
Word Count: 1001
This extract is set in the immediate aftermath when the man and the boy met Ely, whom the man
wanted to leave, but the boys compassion forces him to have dinner with Ely.
We begin with the statement There is no God and we are his prophets the seeming paradoxical
statement uttered by Ely. The statement however, contains a certain amount of meaning, as it
confirms the godless nature of the landscape they inhabit- Ely is a prophet of atheism. This
underpins a feature of the novel: that the man is living for his son, rather than for God, and that he
has a habit of questioning God, saying of the boy as If he [the child] is not the word of God God
never spoke, making him not a prophet of God, but of his child. In Genesis, God creates the world by
speaking it into being and God said let there be light, so the previous statement may be a
challenge, that unless the boy is made by God, then God did not make anything at all, thus there is
no-one to blame for the hopeless landscape. This is explored throughout the passage through Elys
denial of God, which is not a denial overall, but an obituary to a God who may have existed. Explored
through Elys language, and the way he refers to God in the above quote, with a lower case h in his.
The irreverence of not using a capital H may allude to Gods non-existence in the novel.
Ely can be read as Elijah, an Old Testament prophet, not only because of his name, but because they
are both blind, and Elijah is described as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch with fire being a
motif in the novel. However, Ely has not seen a fire in a long time; given that fire represents
humanity and civilization in the book, we learn something of his existence. The prophet Elijah
wandered in the wilderness, fed by ravens sent by God, much like the boy (who is mistaken for an
angel, poignant, considering that angles are classically depicted as winged beings) feeds Ely. When
asked how the he survives, Ely says People give you things. The man reacts sceptically, because
people do not help people in this story, making the statement look like a brazen lie, leading us to
believe that the only reason Ely lives is through some sort of divine intervention. Moreover, the book
of Malachi sates God would send the prophet Elijah before that great and terrible day comes,
comparing the event that destroyed the world to that of judgment day, which is said to come in fire
and brimstone, and wash away the unworthy. Ely predicts the end of the world, stating And that is
how it will be. a short, unpunctuated, sentence containing only monosyllabic words, making the
effect of the statement final. That powerful meaning is subverted, by Ely proclaiming that there is
no God and we are his prophets, perhaps showing how he feels betrayed by Gods inaction, and
making Ely a metaphor for a relic of the past, and the reminder of an absent God.
Polysyndectic sentences like the penultimate sentence of the extract are used throughout to
illustrate sporadic bursts of action that litter the novel. The repletion of and in the sentences is a
stylistic choice which causes us to become out of breath when reading aloud, mimicking the
breathlessness of the man, as he coughs on ashen air. We see that the acts themselves are laboured
by our own laboured feelings when reading it. However, fragmented sentences often punctuate the
complex, not only allowing breathing space, but are useful in examining a central theme: looking
back. When you read a fragmented sentence such as And that is how it will be we are forced to
look back to the previous sentence in order to make sense of what we have just read. This is what
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the man does: looking back is routine. When he looked back where the use of the word when at
the beginning of the sentence makes the action sound predictable, simply another part of the mans
routine which comforts him, fooling himself into thinking he might survive. The boy however Never
looked back at all. This is the final sentence of the extract, and is a full clause on its own, which
emphasises the boys innate ability to survive. That the boy does not look distinguishes him from his
father, in that it is the reason he can survive and his father cannot. These two examples come after
they have both left Ely, who is a metaphor the ideologies of the past. As they leave the ancient relic,
the way they react shows how they always react: the boy moves on, whilst the man must look to the
past. McCarthy is giving us a grim reminder of what happens to people who hold onto the past in
this world- they are vanish forever, like the past, and humanity goes with it.
There is no speech marks and often very little indication that speech has started. Considering the
link to Genesis, and words being used to create, the spartan nature of language has an impact on the
wasteland: it is not language that breaks down after society does, but the opposite way around.
You should thank him you know does not even begin a new line. It only becomes apparent with
the phrase the man said tacked on. This makes it difficult to keep track of alternating dialog,
especially in this extract, which has expansive dialogue, unusual for the book. The speech is often in
short sentences, so spacing of the speech often leaves large areas of blank page. This gives the
speech a very barren look on the page, emphasizing that isolation of the characters, and the
desolate landscape. The nakedness of the page illustrates the breakdown of language, that there is
nothing left to talk about. Language has disintegrated, into something people barley need to
communicate. When the boy meets the veteran, when he spoke his mouth worked imperfectly,
which implies that he does not have practice in forming words, displaying the physical aspect of
language breakdown. This recurs when the boy asks the meanings of words, such as Whats
negotiate? these words do not hold meaning for him, because these words apply to a world,
where men cant live. Moreover, the coupling of the text together shows the proximity between
the characters, and how they often cling together for survival.