“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy
Plot summary
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Section 1 (Pages 1-50) Main events:
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Setting is established (“dark nights and gray days”)
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Dream (like in Pinocchio, being swallowed up by a beast) ( p.1)
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Roadside gas station (p.4)
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City landscape (p.10)
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Flashback of childhood and normality (p. 11)
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Dream of “pale bride” (p. 17)
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Dam (p.19)
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A house (p.21)
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A supermarket (p.21)
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A city (p.23)
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His old house (p.24)
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Passing through the mountains (p.30)
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Boy has penguin nightmare (p.37)
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Swim in the river pool and morels (p. 39)
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Truck on the bridge (p. 45)
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Dying man on the road (p. 51)
Section 2 (pages 50-100) Main events
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Dying man (p.51)
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Nuclear holocaust (?) – events in the past (p.54)
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Playing cards (p.55)
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Boy wishes to be dead (56)
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Wife’s suicide (59)
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Father kills a man (they meet the bad guys) (68)
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Last tin of food (80)
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Flute (81)
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They find fruits (83)
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They find blankets (84)
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They find cornmeal (88)
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Little boy (88)
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Eating raisins (92)
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They scavenge some grain in a barn (94)
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Caravan of people on the road (98)
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They enter a cedar wood to shelter themselves from the snow (100)
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Section 3 (pages 100-150) Main events
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Trees falling around them (102)
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Cart is left behind (104)
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They eat snow (107)
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No food for 5 days – they enter mansion (11)
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They find people in the mansion cellar (116)
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Man finds apples (127)
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Issues of morality (135)
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Present state of the world (138)
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He dreams of her in her nightgown (139)
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Bunker (paradise) (146)
Section 4 (pages 150 – 200) Main events
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Boy doesn’t know how to use toilet (153)
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Table blessing (154)
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Real baths (155)
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Haircuts (161)
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Leaving shelter (paradise ) (165)
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Boy questions dad (167)
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Blind old man on the road (171-185)
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Empty tank of gas (187)
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Train in the woods (189)
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Present conditions (192)
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Boy dreams his father is dead (194)
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Human head beneath a cake bell (195)
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3 men appear in a small town (197)
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Man is sick (198)
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Memories of libraries (199)
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Memory of burning snakes (200)
Section 5 (pages 200-250) Main events
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Firestorm landscape & charred bodies (202)
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Survival lessons (207)
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They come across 3 men and 1 pregnant woman (207)
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Leaf to powder (209)
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Smoke in the woods (209)
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Infant on the coals (211)
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Drinking water (214)
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They come across a house – Boy hates the indoors (219)
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Jars of vegetables (222)
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Dad is really resourceful (226)
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Fishing for gasoline (229)
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On seeing the sea (230)
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Swim in the sea (232)
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Purpose of the book (234)
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Spanish boat (237)
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Brass sextant (243)
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Pistol is forgotten on the sand (248)
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Section 6 (pages 250-307) Main events
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Flare pistol found (256)
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Boy is sick (264)
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All their stuff gone (271)
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Boy crying over thief (276)
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Moral issues (278)
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Man with bow hurts father (281)
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Refusing to hear stories (286)
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Boy’s trauma (289)
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Role reversal (boy looking after man) (292)
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Leaving the cart behind (294)
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Choosing a place to die (298) – Light on the boy
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Last advice to boy (297)
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Death of his dad (300)
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Boy is found by veteran (301)
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Wife of man on God (306)
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Prophetic lament on how world used to be (307)
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Section 1 (pages 1-50) Questions
1. What are the first clues the author uses to let us know all is not
well?
2. What do the first three lines of the book establish to the reader?
3. What’s the significance of his first nightmare on page 1?
4. What’s the meaning behind the following quote: “ He knew only that
the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God
God never spoke.” (p3)
5. Why are the man and the boy moving south? (p2)
6. Man has a flashback of his childhood on p.11. What’s the tone of
the excerpt? List any information which recalls the normality of a
time gone forever.
7. As they travel along, what are the man’s main worries? (explicitly
told, p.16)
8. What do we learn about his wife on pages 17 and 18? What
thoughts do these memories evoke on the reader?
9. Why is the man convinced that “the right dreams for a man in peril
were dreams of peril”? Look at p. 20 for an extra clue.
10. What’s the Coca-Cola symbolic of? (p.22)
11. What’s particularly poignant, in your opinion, during the visit to his
old house? (p.24-27)
12. Look at the following pages: 28,32,33. What type of people are also
travelling and were travelling “in those first years”?
13. What’s symbolic about the boy’s “penguin nightmare” on p.37?
14. What’s particularly odd and shocking about the truck on the
bridge? (p.45-48)
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Section 2 (pages 50-100) Questions
1. Pick up four quotations from page 51 which relate to the dying man. Why
do you think this episode was included by the author? (You need to
examine the boy’s reaction closely)
2. In this section of the novel we finally come to realise what actually
happened that ended up devastating the planet. Look at p. 54 and list all
the clues. Why is the detail about the “migratory birds” essential to
understand what happened?
3. What impact does the boy’s wish to be dead have on the reader? (p.56)
4. How did you feel when you first read of his wife’s suicide on pages 5760? What makes it especially crude?
5. Read pages 62-74. This is one of the most dramatic and harrowing
sections of the book. In it, the man and the boy endure a terrifying
experience which ultimately results in the killing of a man.
a) What makes this episode so emotionally charged?
b) Why does the man mistrust strangers?
c) How does the author’s style reflect the tension experienced?
d) How are our sympathies engaged throughout the entire event? Please
identify ways and collect quotes.
e) How is the reader made aware of the fact that the party of the truck
were to be feared?
f) “Talk to me, he said, but he would not”. Why do you think the boy is
refusing to talk to his dad?
6. Why is the cane flute symbolic in the story? p,81
7. And the dog on the page 86?
8. Look at the dialogue on pages 81 and 87. From what the boy says, what
type of lifelong lessons is the boy learning from his dad? What morals is
he being taught?
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9. Do you think the boy really saw another “little boy”? Why is this event so
ironic when you take the novel as a whole?
10. What was distinctly bizarre about the caravan of people on p. 96? What
does that show us about the order of the world?
11. What’s, in your opinion, oddly pleasant about the cedar wood on p. 99?
Section 3 (pages 100-150) Questions
1. Sheer desperation drives the man and the boy to an old mansion. They
had “ no food and little sleep in five days”. Instinct tells the boy they
should not enter but his dad takes the risk. (p.111)
a) What exactly did they find? Quotes needed as evidence.
b) Why there, in a locked cellar?
c) Read p.119. The man was going to run to divert the attention of the six
strangers. What stopped him from leaving the boy?
d) What lesson does the man learn from this experience? (p.124)
e) What lesson is the boy learning on pages 134, 135 and 136?
2. On page 137 we are told the man “sobs uncontrollably but it wasn’t
about death”. What’s he grieving for? (Carrying the fire)
3. Explain the contrast between pages 138 and 139. (We are looking into
the man’s very thoughts and his perception of reality)
4. They finally arrive at a “solitary house in a field”. History seems to
repeat itself. (p. 139 onwards) How does the author engage our full
attention and emotions as we read along?
5. What’s the bunk symbolic of?
6. What does the dialogue on p.148 tell us about the boy?
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7. There’s one thing that they cannot find in the bunk which seems like
an extremely important object. What is it? Why do you think the
author omitted this?
Section 4 (pages 150-200) Questions
1. It soon starts to sink in for us that the boy’s only knowledge of the world
is the present reality they live in. How do we become aware of that? Look
at pages 153 and 154.
2. Read the last paragraph on page 154. The boy tries to thank the people by
concocting a table blessing. What does his attempt tell us about the boy?
Give as much detail and information as possible.
3. In your opinion, and judging from pages 157 – 159, how resourceful do you
think the man is?
4. After finding a small piece of paradise, the man confides to the reader
that “some part of him wished they’d never found this refuge. Some part
of him always wished it to be over.” p. 163) n your opinion, why do you
think he feels like that?
5. On pages 166-168 the boy keeps asking the dad questions. Why do you
think these are relevant in the story?
6. The man and the boy meet a blind old man on the road (pp.171-185) and
the episode has certain similarities with biblical events. Their
conversations are bizarre in content but highly revealing.
a) Is there anything symbolic in the blind man’s name or appearance?
b) What’s interesting about the boy’s attitude to the blind man and his
dad’s?
c) Who was Elijah in the Bible?
d) What’s prophetic in the blind man’s speech?
e) What does he mean (among some other of his paradoxes) when he says
“There is no God and we are his prophets”? (p181)
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f) Ely thinks of the boy as an “angel”, a vision. Why?
g) Finally, as they say farewell to the old man, the father asks him to thank
the boy and they both discuss the reasons behind the boy’s actions. Why
do you think he helped the man?
7. Straight after leaving the blind man behind, things start going wrong and
the future looks bleaker then ever. List some of the drawbacks they
encounter.
8. On pages 192 and 193 the man tells us about the present condition of the
world in terms of powerful images and language. Look at the language
closely and explain how well or unwell it ties in with the story being told in
the novel.
9. On page 194 the boy dreams his father’s dead. List significant events
worth mentioning up to p.200 (from 194)
10. What’s the significance of these events in the story, why did the author
include them?
Section 5 (pages 200-250) Questions
The boy no longer seems shocked or troubled by images of the dead (203)
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He seems to be stronger / maturer
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More experienced
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Less innocent.
1. An incident on p. 211 is particularly horrific. What does it tell us about
the world as it is now and the people who populate it? How does the boy
feel about it?
2. What’s symbolic about the memory the man has of the corpses dug out
(p.229) (He himself resembles one)
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3. Despite the fact that the colour of the sea is no longer blue, it does stir
a lot of memories and thoughts in the man. What do you consider to be
the most important of all? (Loot at p 234) (Purpose of the book)
4. Why do you think the man is so reassuring towards the boy when the
pistol is forgotten? (p.248)
Section 6 (pages 250-307) Questions
1. Re-read the conversation in pages 260(end) and 261. What’s heroic about
it?
2. When all their stuff is stolen the dad recovers it through sheer
desperation and fearless determination. The man and boy react very
differently when they try to recover their cart. Why is this contrast
effective in the story?
3. Why does the boy confess that he is the one who worries about
everything on p. 277? Then on 278 he says but “we did kill him”. Why
“we”? Why does he say that when they didn’t kill him?
4. Look at the 2nd paragraph on p.292. There’s a role reversal between man
and boy. “In some other world…but he had no life other”. Explain what he
means by that.
5. In the last few pages of the book a lot of important events happen. What
are , in your opinion, the most memorable ones? Explain why.
6. The prophetic lament about how beautiful the world used to be closes the
book in a very nostalgic tone. What did you think of it?
7. Is it appropriate for the wife (of the man who rescued the boy) to
understand the essence of God? Do we feel better as readers when we
realise that she herself is godly?
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Discussion questions
1. Why do you think McCarthy wrote “The Road”?
2. Why did the father choose to survive and not the mother?
3. What do you think the coast represents (physically and figuratively)?
4. One man they meet on the road says: “There is no God and we are his
prophets”. What is meant by this?
5. What are the key moments that help push the father to keep striving on?
6. When does the boy become a man? What does he see that his father
can’t?
7. What do you think McCarthy is saying about humanity in “The Road”?
8. What would you do in a world like this? Would it change your beliefs?
What would you hope in?
9. What do you think McCarthy is thinking when he speaks of “the deep
glens where all things are older than man and hum of mystery”? What
does it make you think of?
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