The Road Symbolism, Imagery, & Allegory

Highways and interstates (and some minor roads) comprise the setting of this novel. (The characters do stop at a few houses, but these function as pauses in their journey.) The characters spend so...

Early in the novel, The Man pries a Coke free from a drink machine. Although one critic has noted this was "perhaps the last can of Coke in the world" (source), The Boy and The Man do drink Cokes l...

When The Man comes down with a fever, he has some crazy dreams. He also recounts a near-visionary childhood memory of men burning snakes. The memory articulates a lot of the complexities of evil &#...

In a book filled with disturbing images, this one is probably the most shocking. Both The Boy and The Man notice that someone is following them, so they hide their cart and watch the road from high...

As far as images of existential abandonment, the flarepistol (or flare gun) takes the cake. What's sadder than shooting a flare into the ocean with absolutely no hope that anyone will see it? To ma...

We realize that none of these images have been too happy. Well, here's a happy one, although we're not sure how much it'll lift your spirits after all the disquieting stuff. McCarthy gives us pages...