hope at the end of the road

A reading of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a post-apocalyptic world

Last week, I shared a close reading exercise to show you how to read a single paragraph to inspire a longer close reading.

Today, I’m sharing my close reading of The Road, as a way of connecting the dots between the exercise and its potential output: a short essay.

The paragraph that I closely read last week introduced a few key themes, including the shift from stability to chaos, internal states mirroring the external world, and imagery about earthly elements. In my close reading, below, I develop on those themes by addressing additional passages and attempting to better understand my reading experience of this very sad, strangely hopeful novel.