McCarthy Unabridged: The Road, Page 252
The passage below is the scene in the middle of the night at the beach that never made it through the final edits of The Road.
Standing back up on his feet was difficult. He walked a bit farther away from the boy, toward the beach. He bent over with his hands on his knees. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer, his lungs ached and he head spun. He prayed the boy didnt remember any of this when the sun comes up tomorrow. The waves were rolling slowly, crashing and pulling closer. Still coughing and spitting up blood the man quickly started.
He ran to the boy. He was still asleep and the man felt his forehead. It subsided and was back to normal. The boy was whimpering quietly and tears were leaving dirty streaks on his cheeks. Please, leave my papa hes got the fire… me instead. The man sat next to the boy. Tears now streamed down his face too. He brushed the boys hair slowly, wiping the sweat and tears away. Soon the boy’s crying quieted. The man coaxed the fire back with what was left in the ashes but it didnt warm the chill creeping into his bones
Im supposed to save you, you dont save me. What are we doing here? I cant be here without you.
The infinite darkness made the man’s hearing sharper, but there was nothing left to hear. The world was already dead.
My creative addition to the novel is inspired by key motifs, themes, essential questions, and literary techniques. My rationale is explained below.
My goal in writing this passage is to give the reader a unique look into the strong paternal love and affection. This novel tells an amazing story of a man and his son, but their relationship is unlike any other. The boy and the man depend on each other to survive and at times it seems like the boy is truly the older and wiser of the two. In this passage the man faces this reality and breaks down. The boy is restless and sick on the beach when the man hears him talking in his sleep. The boy is worried about the man and, once again, wants to protect the man from danger.
This book explores themes of selfishness vs selflessness when they meet Ely, when they stay in the bunker, and when the man and the boy share a can of soda. Each time, we see that the boy is astonishingly selfless and giving. In this scene I was hoping to convey another side of that theme. The man loves the boy for his compassion and generosity, but is equally concerned that one of his best features will bring the end to him.
In a dead, post-apocalyptic world the man and the boy travel south. Perhaps the south will bring warmer weather. Whatever the reason, neither the man nor the boy are able to answer why they are still living in the world at all. In this scene, the man breaks down and tries to convince the nothingness around him that he is watching out for the boy, not the other way around. He resigns that he is nothing in this world without the boy. This speaks to a theme of meaning and purpose that is really relevant to all readers. Is our life only worth fighting for if we have someone to love? Or maybe it’s the other way around- only if there is someone in the world to love us?
Cormac McCarthy crafted The Road with a singular and memorable writing style. In my addition to the text I tried to write as close to his literary style as possible. Some notable features of his writing are short and simple sentences that reveal meaning and depth through simple actions and movements. McCarthy rarely, if ever, reveals complex emotions of ideas through long passages. Another notable feature of his writing is the grammar and syntax. Passages may have a sentence or two toward the end of speech that is never explained again. I mimicked this by including a vocal response from the man on the beach. Additionally, McCarthy never uses apostrophes in contractions with words with “not”.
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