Voice and POV.

Voice and Point of View

The Road is written in the third person, in the voice of an omniscient narrator, with the characters referred to as ‘he’ or ‘the boy’. However, within this, McCarthy manipulates and plays with the narrative voice and the point of view from which the story is seen. Here are some of the things you might find interesting to explore in relation to the narrative voice of The Road: 

• –  3rd person voice, omniscient point of view
• –  3rd person voice, from the point of view of the man
• –  3rd person voice, from the point of view of the boy
• –  unattributed dialogue (i.e. without ‘he said’)
• –  decontextualised dialogue (without commentary from the narrator)
• –  unattributed thoughts (i.e. without ‘he thought’)
• –  not signalling where the narrative ends and dialogue or the thoughts of a character in the first person begin
• –  dream sequences related without a clear sense of whether it is in the third or first person
• –  3rd person free indirect style where the reader not only feels he/she is seeing events from a character’s perspective but that it is in the character’s own words, not those of the narrative voice. 
  To explore the narrative voice of The Road you will need photocopies of the extracts suggested on page 28.

Extract 3: page 122 
He’d no idea what direction they might have taken and his fear was that they might circle and return to the house. ... He held the child and after a while the child stopped shaking and after a while he slept. 

" in what direction do lost men veer?" the whole extract seems to be spoken by the narrator ( of whom we do not know, maybe the family following them ) except for this one point which seems to stem from the mans mind himself, this 1st person view is used to create a sense of disorientation and confusion. 

McCarthy switches from different points of view and narration within the book to create a deliberate sense of disillusion  and confusion to reflect and give us an insight to the helplessness and lack of understanding the characters themselves experience, for example " in what direction do lost men veer " sees the man asking of his own direction and his own acceptance of being lost- as a man with direction cannot be truly lost- this is an example of McCarthy's sense of " free indirect " narration.

The map he carries reflects on how he is trying to place his world ( old world ) that no longer exists into this new world, he cannot let go of his old world and carries this as a sense of relief, in hope that something recognisable or reminiscent of his old world still exists. It is futile, as the map no longer resembles the new world yet he still tries, like being alive in a dead world.

The only character who recognises this was the woman.

They are " carrying the fire " the light, symbolism of light and hope, except the world is " graying " and there is no colour let alone light 

, infact " the world grows darker everyday " even the flare, a symbol of safety and help cannot be seen upon the graying ash filled skies, when the man dies the light dies.