Beauty in Life

It is interesting to realize that all of the novels we have read have focused in some way on the beauty that is life. Whether it is that horrifying kind of beauty that we discussed pertaining to The Things They Carried or the miraculous beauty Pi sees in the lightening storm, it deserves to be put into words that adequately portray what is seen or felt. In The Road, I see a continuation of that underlying theme of beauty, whether it be horrifying or not.

The fragmented text that we discussed in class is still present as you continue reading the novel, but I definitely see the poetic turn that takes place. The words of the Papa begin to paint a picture for me in which I see the desolation but also the beauty. One phrase that I especially love is on pg. 139. They find the bunker of hidden riches and describe it as "the richness of a vanished world." I love the picture that paints of them making their way through a grey and morbid world, only to come upon an oasis in the midst of hell. I can just imagine them standing in that bunker gazing with unbelief on shelves upon shelves of food and supplies. I imagine in movie form that violins would begin to play and the music would reach some sort of crescendo.

The "Star Wars" theme may also be appropriate for this moment.

There is also a great amount of beauty in the words he uses and the sound they make as they come together. "Waste of weeds," "loved ones lost" (180). There are examples on nearly every page of McCarthy's use of poetry in describing this ruined world. I think that poetry is just as fitting as the fragmented text because the story is both of those things: there can still be beauty in what little remains of that "vanished world."