Images

He squatted and scooped up a handful of stones and smelled them and let them fall clattering. Polished round and smooth as marbles or lozenges of stone veined and striped. Black disclets and bits of polished quartz all bright from the mist off the river. The boy walked out and squatted and laved up the dark water.

One relevant aspect from The Road which may often be overlooked is imagery. McCarthy utilizes a concise and objective narrative which helps images to be more vivid and flagrant. According to this perspective, metaphysical reflections convey from these images, since the short direct descriptions tend to reflect more an idea than a simple sequence of events. In the passage below, when the events are taking place the following excerpt stands out from the context, serving as an interpretation for a deeper meaning of the actual road deviation: "They came upon the road unexpectedly and he stopped the boy with one hand and they crouched in the roadside ditch like lepers and listened. No wind. Dead silence." The mans state of vulnerability can be seen past the passage. Being evident the position in which he is encountered with no wind and no sounds, a pseudo emptiness I would say.

They moved on east through the standing dead trees. They passed an old frame house and crossed a dirt road. A cleared plot of ground perhaps once a truckgarden. Stopping from time to time to listen. The unseen sun cast no shadow. They came upon the road unexpectedly and he stopped the boy with one hand and they crouched in the roadside ditch like lepers and listened. No wind. Dead silence. After a while he rose and walked out into the road. He looked back at the boy. Come on, he said. The boy came out and the man pointed out the tracks in the ash where the truck had gone. The boy stood wrapped in the blanket looking down at the road.