Previous
Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
McCarthy makes setting the centerpiece of The Road, at times allowing the ash-draped, sagging skylines to take precedence over the actual events of the story itself. The novel famously opens in the wake of some earth-ending destruction, stepping into a post-apocalyptic future trapped in “billows of ash” and “murk.” Though the exact calamity is never described, the novel suggests that it has left few survivors behind.
This new world is grim, barren, and unforgiving. The narrator—a role shared at times between a detached third-person presence and the man himself—lingers over the “bare and blackened” forests and the “gray shape” of the specter-like city. The man and boy’s journey guides the reader through decrepit farms, shriveled forests, and waste-filled beaches—scenic views no longer.
Those left alive are engaged in a brutal struggle for survival. Though the apocalypse is over, catastrophe is not: wildfires, snow, and rainstorms continue to ravage the planet, and the remaining survivors on the planet must compete for resources. As the man and boy pass through stretches of forests and vacant cities, they scour abandoned houses for food while defending themselves against roving thieves. Families sacrifice infants and others starve. The streets are overrun by cannibalizing road gangs who pick off women or children and lock them in basements. The Road surveys a familiar American landscape now twisted beyond recognition.
Related Themes:
