Okay? Okay.
This shows the reassurance the boy needs from the father, he seems still unaware of his surroundings and still not managed to process the world how it is now, he continually asked for his fathers guidance showing his need of help and reassurance. The response is blunt and emotionless, this symbolises the world around him becoming nothing but bleak and emotionless, it shows his anguish with the world and shows a negative ambience within it, the blunt and full stopping shows his confidence within his answer and no hesitation- showing the father as a determined yet rather stubborn character as he does not seem to process his answer through. This blunt answer also lets us know that he does not wish for his son to ask again, Maybe he is sick of his sons questioning? However it could also parallel the blunt and sudden ending in which the world has fallen in the apocalyptic placing the novel has been put in.
'They sat on the edge of the tub and pulled their shoes on and them he handed the boy the pan and soap and he took the stove and the little bottle of gas and the pistol and wrapped in their blankets and they went back across the yard to the bunker.'
As McCarthy shows within the book lack of detail and short blunt descriptions, this appears to be one of the longest extracts and sentence within the book making it prominent and obviously he wanted us to notice this particular bit. The repetition of " and " particularly drags out the piece and shows the tension and movement of time that drags out within it, they use them to make all the small movements and things they are doing extremely tedious and emotionless, almost zombie like ( zombie reference ) and exaggerates the pointlessness of it all.
Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth
The word tolling drags out the sentence as it is read, this shows McCarthy using his language to drag out the time and movement from the characters and expresses their suffering with this even more. The " silence " is used to express how the world is indeed empty, and dead, they are alone and isolated within the deathscape, however we would normally think of a silent world as something beautiful, picturesque, however from this description in seems abandoned rather than beautiful, deathly and hollow.
She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift
The coldness of her leaving reflects the environment they are currently in, staggering through the snow, as if this is what she left them with. The fact that it was her " final gift " creates the image that she was one one who made them happy and kept them together, she was the maker and peace giver whom constantly gave gifts primarily of love and company etc. the fact that it was her " final gift " reflects her death and the resonance of their now isolation and abandonment. The coldness also reflects on how nothing is good anymore, the post apocalyptic world is full of death and this in fact has left everything cold, heartless, bleak.
Ben, some lovely responses here, try to also consider the significance of the word 'tolling', this is a term more commonly associated with bells. Is time marking a death knell for the earth?
ReplyDeleteWith 'coldness being her final gift' McCarthy is intimating that the lack of emotion in her leaving was in fact an act of kindness as it prevented the Man and the Boy from any emotional reaction. This coldness appears to be something the man attempts to emulate in his interactions with the boy.