This is an extra scene of what I imagined happened in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road...

Before, they lived with two men and one woman with a child. They took shifts watching for the roadrats. Rumors passed around about people who left the town at night for food or water. Some heard their screams, others heard the chopping. He held her close every night. He could feel the child kicking her skin. Translucent and full, like the moon they would never see again.

The men proposed to move to the next town. They left in the day a week later. The two men held the weapons in the front of the group. The first night was cold. He fell asleep with his pistol beside him and the child between her and him.

He awoke to leaves rustling a few yards away. The two men stood by the woman whose mouth was stuffed with a dirty rag. Her child was limp in between her spread legs. One man leaned down to whisper to her and the other unzipped his pants. She began to sob. He fired once and then twice. Two florid splotches appeared on their heads as they fell.

He untied her hands and feet while her limbs shook. The brains of the child were spread on the ground.

They told me they were going to cook my baby.

He didn’t notice the knife until her hand flashed towards her heart. The color of her face drained onto her clothes. They left the bodies and walked back to town.

For my piece, I chose the quote that stuck with me after I had finished the book. I really like this quote because it really has some connection to the book’s essential questions. The quote is found on page 10 when the boy and the man pass some dead bodies. The boy doesn’t seem to be fazed when he sees the bodies but the man comments on how things stick in your head and the boy points out that the man forgets things. The man replies with “Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” I thought that this was an interesting quote because it seems as if it had been told to the man by someone else before and I wanted to write about the situation that he would have been in.

I chose to write about cannibalism and morals because that was a huge part of staying the good guys for the boy. Every time they saw evidence of cannibalism, the boy would ask the man if they were going to stay the good guys. The man must have had an experience where he decided that he would never be a cannibal but early enough that the boy wouldn’t have remembered it. If the boy would have remembered a time where they were close to becoming the bad guys, I don’t think that he would have been as innocent as he was portrayed in the book. Some of the essential questions that I thought about in my brainstorm were, “Where do morals come from?” and “Who or what do you live for if there is nothing left?” These fit into my piece because this would be one of the moments that probably would have shaped the man’s morals and then in time, the boy’s morals. The woman in the piece (not the mother of the boy), kills herself in the end because her son is dead. This shows that she was only surviving and living because of her son.

The taste of sulfur still lingering in the air, the man coughed. Felt the debris cut pieces from his throat and coughed up more blood onto the frozen ground. He looked up into the gray and the dark of the sky and shouted to god;

Have you no mercy!?... Have you no shame!?

His breath riding on the wind, the cold air making silhouettes of the shadows of what full trees once looked like. It reminded him of how hope took false forms, how it was a bargaining chip from god to the damned, and all he could do was sit. Trying to extract the pieces of the mirage from his mind.

What do you want from me!? What do you want from us!? Why am I still here!!!

The ringing silence that bounced off the wind taunted him, the apples fallen and rotting at his feet.

He thought of the rain, he thought of the simmering ground how it was always cold and thawing but never completely unfrozen. What an irony in a world of fire, He thought of floods, and noah, and world's end, he thought of water, and the life that is given with a boat. How long would it sit frozen? The rust eating away at the pipes. You cannot clean the world of soot, or ash, or singed leaves that have long fallen and been dead. Hell was right here.

Isn’t it?

In the rotting of dead men, with teeth like splinters, everything, burned.

The reason I chose this section on page 119 right before the man goes into the house and chews the hay seeds, is because I honestly felt as though something was missing. That we missed something between those two moments That break in a paragraph has the ability to further create a dialog of what it means to be forsaken. Especially in a world like this. It raises the question of; Can truly even be a good guy? Apples are always a significant tool used in literature. Authors make choices when they write, and McCarthy being the poetic writer that he is I believe chose apples rotten apples and a burned apple orchard or I interpreted it at least, as addressing the idea of the world's end and being forsaken, because prior to this scene in the apple orchard we hear talk of serpents and other biblical references. Therefore I tied back that piece of genesis with Adam and Eve to the end of the world, how she had forsaken mankind and now the time has now ended completely. That hell is the very world you live in. I chose this theme in particular because the Man’s conversations with god many times turn to arguments, vast exchanges of silence and anger and shouting between the man and the sky, and then there is this other piece of god that the man has which is through the boy, and what it means to have faith. It is as if the boy is his god, because the boy is what he believes in. The boy in many ways which are more innocent is this all knowing being, who often times brings the hope back to the man, and keeps the man going. The boy is the man’s god because the man has unwavering faith in the boy, as one does in god, the boy has to live, the boy has to keep moving, the boy drives the man’s will to live, the mans faith in his entirety. The only way the man still feels anguish in a world this doused in pain is because of his love and obligation to protect the boy whom he has deemed sacrosanct.

I use to drink those all the time when I was your age.

How long ago was that?

I don't remember.

The man and the boy look around to see if there was anything else that was useful that could be added to their cart. The man curiously walked near a flight of stairs that seemed to start near the entrance.

What is it?

Wait here.

Let me go with you, I’m scared.

No, I’ll be back. I’ll let you know if I find anything.

But Papa.

Don’t follow me.

The man slowly approached the staircase, he tip toed up the stairs keeping a tight grip on his gun. Before he reached the top of the stairs he looked to see if there was anyone in the room. Once he reached the top of the stairs he was overwhelmed to see what his eyes had not seen in years.

Get up here, I have something to show you.

What is it?

Come up and I’ll show you.

I don’t know, is it safe?

Just come up here, you’ll like it I promise.

The boy took a large amount of time to get up the stairs, the man didn’t mind as he was mesmerized by what he had seen.

What is it?

It’s a radio.

What’s a radio?

It’s like a box that plays any kind of music you put into it.

Does it work?

I don’t know, I’ll try to turn it on.

The man picked up the radio and observed it for a couple of minutes, he tested all of the buttons and was finally able to turn it on.

I don’t hear anything.

You have to put in the CD so it can play.

Where can we find one?

Help me look around, there should be some around.

The man opened the cabinet below from where the radio was, he grabbed the first one he saw and handed it to the boy.

Is this it?

Yes.

What does it say?

Greatest Hits of The Century. Put it in, and press the button that says play.

It took a couple of seconds for the first track on the CD to play. The first song was by Dion, The Twist. The moment the song began the man moved his hips and feet and sang the words of the song as loud as he could. The boy did not understand what he was doing and seemed to be bewildered as he stared at him.

Papa, what are you doing?

Dancing, come on it’s easy.

I don’t know, you’re acting really strange.

It’s not strange, just try it.

But I don’t know how.

Just do the twist.

I don’t even know what that means.

It means stop being scared and dance.

After three songs had passed the boy smiled and joined the man in the middle of the floor. The boy didn’t know any of the songs so he sang whatever seemed right. The man looked down at the boy and began to laugh. Once the last track ended they grabbed all their stuff and set out back onto the road, for the rest of the journey the man and the boy hummed each song they had danced to and disappeared into the cold dark night.

Rationale of The Creative Scene

I chose to write the creative scene after the man and the boy were in the supermarket and the man wanted him to try the coca cola because I wanted to add more nostalgic elements to the story. The scene where the man gives the boy the coca cola gives the reader a taste of what was a custom of the world before the events that have left it in the way it is now. Creating the scene where the man finds the radio and identifies what is playing and as well as his actions gives the reader more background information about the man and what the boy is familiar with pertaining to what he knows about the world the man grew up in, which would be the motif of my creative scene. I also wanted to introduced a different side of the man, a side to which even the boy wasn’t familiar with. It shows how much humanity the man still has inside of him, and how little the boy has experienced throughout his time in the world they know now to be a wasteland. The theme of my creative scene is similar to the scene where the man gives the boy the coca-cola, except it is more nostalgic and playful. When I wrote the scene I included how the man wanted the boy to join him, I made it clear that the opportunity for the boy to actually be a kid and experience something that the man had once experienced himself was probably the only one he would get. 

My essential question was “What is the relationship between the man and the boy? Throughout the novel we are given examples to when the man shows how he protects the boy, but we also see how the boy controls him and his level of authority. I wanted my creative scene to show a playful father and son bonding moment, something that the reader rarely sees in the novel. My creative scene shows a reflection of an important moment that had just passed, that important moment would be when the man tells the boy to taste the coca-cola. Suggesting that the boy should join the man when he was dancing and singing shows the same elements. For my vocabulary word I chose the twist to describe what the man was doing and what the man was singing. The Twist was a popular song and dance in the 1960's by Dion.

The passage below is what I believe was cut from McCarthy’s The Road:

I watched the boy, his words struck me, he had matured. I wanted to say something but I had no words. The boy wouldn’t talk to me anyway. I looked back the man was standing where I had left him, naked. Even from this far away I could tell how gaunt he was. I averted my gaze and looked at the boy who was now quietly sobbing. I wish he would stop. I continued to watch the boy as he slothed along. The man felt warm arm arise in his throat. He put his hand to his mouth trying to suppress the cough, but it only muffled it. His paced slowed.

“Stop trying to protect me and cough.” 

By the time I removed my hand my cough had slithered back down my throat, all that was left was the blood on my hand. He knew. He knew I wasn’t doing well. I could feel the boy’s eyes watching me think. The boy wouldn’t last long after I was gone. Stripping that man’s clothing made me a bad guy in the boy’s eyes. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without being eaten or shackled if I thought/acted like the boy every thought, intention, tear based solely on others.

Here is the rationale for the choices I made

I placed my creative piece on page 259 on McCarthy’s The Road, right underneath the part when the boy says: I am the one. I chose this part of the book because this scene was so powerful to me. I want to go more indepth in showing how the boy and the man are so different,  and how their means of survival differ. I wanted this scene to start off where McCarthy left off. In the beginning scene the father is contemplating his relationship with the boy after making that man strip down. On page 259 McCarthy shows the boy sobbing and looking back at the man and letting his father know that he was the one who has to worry, which I believe is the most powerful thing the boy said in the book. It lets us know that the boy is beginning to realize he is going to be on his own.

My essential question was: What does it mean to survive. This question had been something that I’d thought a lot about when reading The Road. Throughout the book we have seen the boy show compassion over and over again just as we’ve seen the man do whatever needs to be done to keep him and the boy alive. I thought it was interesting to see the boy stick up for the people his father was going to harm. I decided to elaborate on this scene further because it was in my mind a perfect example of the boy sticking up for the person his father was going to harm. I wanted to give more insight on the father's thoughts. I want to make sure that people understand the importance of this page, of this scene, and I thought that a good way to show this was by writing from the the perspective of the father.

I started my creative piece out with the father reacting to what the boy said: “I am the one.” I wanted the father react to what the boy said to the fact that he had show compassion again toward someone who had taken something from them. I wanted the boy to lash out to show that he didn't need his father to take care of him anymore, to let his father know that he could take care of himself. I noticed that McCarthy didn’t have the father express his feelings or opinions on the boy’s compassion in the book that often and that is something that I would have liked to see more of. I had the boy lash out at his father in my creative scene.

What am I going to say to him?

Don’t worry about that.

We just turn around and you leave that easily?

This is hard for me too. I didn’t want to bring him into this craziness.

You said everything would be okay but look outside. What do you see? I see an absence of color. No life. Just us. How can we survive this for any longer. You will be better off without the stress of me on your back.

Okay.

The boy peeks his head out of his room, disrupting the man and woman.  

Come. Your mother has to talk to you.

The woman looks at the man.

Do you think this is not hard for me?

Look at me baby this is a little hard for me.

What is it mommy?

This isnt mommy saying she doesnt love you. I have to go away for a while, don’t come looking for me. I am okay. You are going to spend most of your days with your father.

Why do you have to go?

You will find out later on in life.

I love you. Okay.

Okay. I love you too.

The man rolls over and looks at the boy.

Good morning papa.

Good morning.

Did you dream about Momma?

No.

I miss her.

Okay.

Do you miss her?

Yes.

Do you think she loves me?

Yes.

Okay.

Okay. Go back to sleep now.

Okay.

This piece is something that I envisioned would have been incorporated within McCarthy’s The Road, if it were not excised before the Final edition’s release.

Creative Piece:

The boy approached the old man. The old man looked in rather excited confusion.

Eh? What is it kid?

Nothing, I just realized how poor off you are.

Whatcha mean?

You can’t see, it must stink, it must really stink.

Well, I see what god wants me to see, and hear what I wanna hear.

That’s the wanion mister because you miss seeing all the beautiful things of this world.

Not anymore.

I wish I could help you, but I can only do what the lord’s given me.

And what’s that?

The ability to sympathize, wist care and love.

My god. You are an angel, better yet, I don’t see your wings, so you’re a prophet! Sent from god, divine appointment, to save our desolate world.

The boy felt empowered.  You’re right about the angel part, cause if I were an angel, I’d already heal your blindness.  

I didn’t really believe you’re father when he said you were a god, but in my head, I knew you were some god-like concoction here to save us all.

I believe so, I wanna help as many people as possible. I don’t think it’s fair for people to be hurt. God loves them and so do I.

Kid, you’re the kindest I ever seen, never had anyone feed me or care for my blindness.

The boy rushed his palm on the man’s eye, with feeble-fingered delicacy. Can you see now?

Suppose I can kid, suppose I can. Thank you for your care.

Rationale:

My creative piece will be placed on page 172 of McCarthy’s The Road, and I am choosing this specific part of the book because this is where there is a heavy amount of discussion on the existence of a god, or something of a god. The boy has a habitual tendency to help other individuals, which is a large part of his persona. This is an explicit trait that the boy holds, especially when he is trying to give the man the ability to see in the scene. The boy is desperate and says his reason for wanting to help people is because he loves them and God loves them. As we see in page 163, after the boy and man encounter the Old man, the boy wants nothing but to aid this helpless and needy man. He is a consummate stranger to him, but the boy disregards this, despite warnings from his father to leave him alone. It is as if it's his divine duty to help the man. His bountiful generosity, so much to extend the man’s trust and advocate for him against his father says he has a divine-like love for his fellow man. His father completely dissents against interacting with the man at first, which is a normal human reaction, but the boy doesn’t really have a reaction to the old man that’s normal. It’s much more compassionate, and less hostile, more on the level of being preternatural.

This relates to the theme of faith, which is a primary allusion when discussing the possibility of the boy being a prophet. I chose this specific theme because on page 172, the man believes the boy to be a god, and the old man believes the boy to be an angel. If they didn’t have faith, if they didn’t believe that because the boy is a child in the midst of all this disparity, there would not be any real faith that the boy may be a prophet sent by god to help others. It brings up the essential question of how is a child living, and thriving so adequately in the world of The Road? The answer to that is simply the boy being there is no normal occurrence, he was sent there to help others, as he does with the Old man.

The passage below is my own addition to improve The Road before McCarthy rejected it. His loss.

Creative piece:

The man and the boy walked amongst the dead forest with nothing but the gray sky lighting their way. Suddenly they saw a stranger in the middle of the path. He wore a dark dusty suit and a goatee around his face and hobbled on a farmer’s pitchfork. The eyes wanted to escape his skull and in certain light had a maroon color. His skin pale and burnt and like craquelure.

Hello friends.

Who are you? The man responded pointing his gun at him. What's your name?

What isn’t my name? The stranger responded, I have so many. You and your boy seem tired, would you like some bread and food? I have some in my home close by.

He could see the stranger’s long nails. No thanks.

You sure you don’t to even see where I am, kill me and take my food for yourself?

The man was taken aback. Why do you even suggest that?

Because you don’t seem like the man who’d do it, too good, yet anyway. His teeth looked like fangs when they smiled.

C'mon let's go. The man said to the boy as he took him away, keeping the gun on the stranger until he disappeared from sight.

The man and boy got lost in the forest for awhile and needed to retrace their steps. When they returned to the place they met the stranger he was nowhere to be seen, not even a trail of where he would have gone.

My rationale:

That rationale for this project is partially aimed to demonstrate its references the bible. In the Bible there is a passage of when the Devil tempts Jesus in the forest, and this passage is meant to reflect that. “The stranger” is meant to be the Devil and included various elements to what most people think of him as (goatee, pitchfork, suit, burns(to represent hellfire) and reddish eyes) and the boy and man simultaneously represent Jesus (in reference to how later the old man will wonder if the boy is god). Craquelure is a French word used to describe the crack on an oil painting as it ridges with age. Even if people don’t know the immediate definition (like other words Mccarthy uses, fitting into his narrative) it still creates a potential image in the reader's head that will stick with them. Since they have just come from the basement they are still a little shell-shocked from the events that transpired, so are acting out-of-character a bit by not exploring this potential route, especially as the stranger seemed particularly unsettling to them.

This passage is the father breaking down what happens when they run out of love.

I’m sorry but there is no way we can take the boy with us you have to believe me.

What makes him any different than me?

Nothing.

You were able to take me

You’re different

How?

Because

You love me

I need you

They walk in silence pacing their steps.

Are you out of love?

No why?

That boy is alone.

We can’t take him. He could kill us.

And I’ll be alone

The man talks to the boy about the possibilities of what will happen if the other little boy goes with them. He quickly explains to the boy what a setup is and how the other boy could be the reason they die.

What if he’s like me?

What if he isn’t?

We don’t know.

Why am I not enough for you?

What’s the other possibility?

We don’t die.

He comes with us.

Then he dies.

Then we die.

The man walks away ashamed of his next thought. Knowing it will cripplekill the boy.

I die

No no I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t let you die.

And you keep going?

Exactly.

I’m not enough for you.

They share a silence and mumble their words as they finally understand each other.

I’m all you’ve got.

This is my rationale explaining what exactly is happening in my creative piece.

For my creative piece I added a forgotten/cut-out text to page 86 right after the boy finishes talking to the man about bring the other boy with them. The man in the book turns down this idea very quickly without explanation. In my creative piece I decided to finally have the man explain his decision to the boy in depth.

My essential question for this was; Is there a certain amount of love each character can give out at once? In my passage I display both of the main character's position on this by inserting things like “Are you out of love?”, to indicate that there is only but so much love you can have. Other things like the man asking the boy “Why am I not enough for you?”. Implying that the boy has so much love for everything it drives the man crazy. I do this so readers can get a better understanding of how much love the man lost when his wife left him, leaving him with only enough love for the boy.

A symbol I chose to use for this passage was, love affects our choices. The man and the boy’s choices differ when it comes to helping people out. The man believes that they should only focus on themselves because he doesn’t have time to love anyone else. The boy never experienced a tragic lost like the man did with his wife so when he sees someone in need he wants to help them. In my creative piece I proved this by writing things like when the man says, “there is no way we can take the boy with us”. I changed the way the boy responds though by having him question the man’s decision while simply asking him “What makes him any different than me?”. The boy realizes that him and the other boy are both alone in a sense. The other boy was physically alone and the boy is emotionally alone. He travels with the man who keeps him company but does not fulfill his emotional needs.

To end my creative piece I talk about the man explaining to the boy what could happen if they bring the other boy with them. If they take him and the man spits up his love for them, he will not stop if the boy dies. He will keep going because he has to take care of the other boy. The boy takes on the man's feelings about being unwanted. Now the boy and the man both have grasped the fact that they only have each other.

The passage below is what I think could be added to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road before the final edition.

So where are we going?

You’ll see.

What is there?

Let’s just say we’re going to the good guys.

The good guys?

Yes, the good guys.

And are they carrying the fire?

Yes, they’re carrying the fire.

They walked through the sand and calculated the sky. The days seemed longer, it was getting warmer and the grey clouds slowly disappeared. They have been walking for a couple of days already, approaching their destination.

The man stepped passed the bank and towards the woods. There in the middle of the woods was an open confined community, surrounded squarely by a 20 foot concrete wall. The boy still wrapped up in the blanket, followed the man to the gate.

Here we are. Welcome to Margin.

What is this place?

This is the home of the survivors.

So no one here eats people?

Nope, we don’t eat people. I told you, we’re the good guys. Everyone here is just like you and me.

Come on follow me, let’s get you settled in.

Infamiliar faces observed the boy as he tailed the man. The pistol was still with him, just like Papa said. He didn’t let anyone take his Pistol. It was the only physical part of Papa, that the boy had. The man brought the boy into a tent.

There’s someone I want you to meet.

There stood a woman with blonde hair. As she made eye contact with the boy she started to cry.

Jonathan?

Mama?

Jonathan ran towards her in tears hugging her in disbelief.

For my creative piece I have decided to add my part to the ending of the book which is on page 287. The boy and the man 2.0 start to build somewhat of a relationship. The man 2.0 is leading and replacing Papa as he continues the journey that the boy Papa started down south. As you see in the dialogue between the boy and the man 2.0. The boy is still very curious and he is continues to asks questions about the “good guys” and “carrying the fire”. The boy wants to have this trust in the man 2.0.

The man 2.0 is taking the boy to a confined community where it is safe. The man 2.0 and the women are sent from this community to find any survivors, also known as the “good guys”. In which they bring them back to this place, so that they can start a new civilization that is against cannibalism.

One major theme in this book is survival, trust and love. The whole point of this book is survival. The man 2.0 and this woman are helping these children. The boy trusted the man as a good guy, he didn’t know what was going to happen to him or what was in store for him. However, he did have hope and he continues to follow the man 2.0 and goes south like Papa had said.

In the book the pistol is mentioned a lot.The boy and Papa run into the “bad guys”. The pistol is the last thing that Papa gave to the boy before he died. Also, that Papa said to never give it to anyone so he will always have it on him. I think that since Papa can no longer protect him, the pistol will.

The boy reunites with his mother in the end. In the book it never mentions what exactly happens to the mom. Most of us assume that she died. I chose to have her alive in this confined community because before she disappeared she did tell Papa to keep going south because that’s where it’s warmer. This is where she ended up being as well. At the end the mother also, calls the boy Jonathan. She reveals that the boy’s name is Jonathan. The Christian meaning behind the name Jonathan means given of god. The boy represents numerous amounts of god like features and traits. When the mother realizes that the boy is her son, she cries because she feels guilty for leaving him and Papa. She is also in shock because she didn’t think she’d see either of them.