I believe one of the biggest secrets kept in this novel is the one from the author to the reader. The author never emits the fact of what exactly happened to have the world be in such a dispaired state. The reader can only make the assumption that it was something catastrophic such as a nuclear war, but evidence was never written for the reader to understand.
Another secret that is kept in the novel is the one as to what exactly the world was like before. The main character "Papa" tries to keep the information from his son, but the author is also keeping the information from the reader. There is no evidence that the world was a better place before this time. For all the reader knows, it could have been a time of mass violence and continuous war and even though there's hardly any food left or shelter, maybe it is a better time. There is evidence on page 92 of "bad people" in society.
"Are they gone, Papa?"
"Yes they're gone."
"Did you see them?"
"Yes"
"Were they the bad guys?"
"Yes they were the bad guys."
How does the reader or the son for that matter know that the world wasn't filled with these "bad guys" before all of this happened. Maybe the world is in this state because of the bad guys and what they did to demolish the lands.
Another secret that is kept in this novel is the one that the father hides from his son about his impending illness. Throughout the novel the father will be sick, or cough up blood, and will get up from his son and go do it away so the son doesn't have to hear him. This is evident on page 175
"He knelt in the dry leaves and ask with the blanket wrapped about his shoulders and after a while the coughing began to subside. ... He hoped the boy had gone back to sleep. He knelt there wheezing softly, his hands on his knees."
The third secret kept from the son by the father is the idea that they are inevitably dying. The son continuously asks the father if they're dying and the father keeps responding with "no". But in actuality, the father has no faith that they are not dying, which is evident on page 129.
"He was beginning to think that death was finally upon them and that they should find some place to hide where they would not be found."
Another evidence of dying is when the father admits to the reader that he is dying, on page 175.
"I am going to die, he said. Tell me how I am to do that."
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3 comments:
I agree with Erin on all of the secrets she listed. I do feel that the biggest secret McCarthy keeps from his readers is what happened to America. The only mention of the event that caused all this devestation is the passage we discussed in class on page 52-53:
"The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions. He got up and went to the window. What is it? she said. He didnt answer. He went into the bathroom and threw the lightswitch but the power was already gone. A dull rose glow in the windowglass."
Even this explanation is very vague. There are numerous possibilities as to what could have possibly happened that including "shears of light", "low concussions" and a "rose glow."
Another area where McCarthy could have divulged more to his readers but still kept it a secret is on page 43:
"Why are they the state roads? Because they used to belong to the states. What used to be called the states. But there's not any more states? No. What happened to them? I don't know exactly. That's a good question. But the roads are still there. Yes. For a while."
Here McCarthy could have had "Papa" say so much more but he chose not to.
The secret of what happened to the world is kept secret to both the readers as well as the son in the story.
I agree that one of the biggest secrets kept in The Road is the secret the author is keeping from his audience. The secret the author is keeping is what happened to America. The only clues the author gives us are through bits and pieces from his descriptions of the setting of where the man and the boy are.
"The trees in their ordered rows gnarled and black and the fallen limbs thick on the ground."(Page 90
)
"On the far side of the river valley the road passed through a stark black burn. Charred and limbless trunks of the trees stretching away on every side. Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wire strung from the blackened lightpoles whining thinly in the wind. A burned house in a clearing and beyond that a reach of meadowlands stark and gray and a raw red mudbank where a roadworks lay abandoned." (Page 8)
I also agree that another secret is kept in The Road. The man is keeping a secret from his son, because he clearly doesn't want his son to see/knowing him coughing because he doesnt want him to worry.
"In the night he woke in the cold dark coughing and he coughed till his chest was raw." (Page 175)
"He was starting to cough and he'd hardly breath to do it with." (Page 66)
"Bent over, coughing. He pulled the bloodstained mask from his face and got up and rinsed it in the ditch and wrung it out and then just stood there in the road." (Page 275)
Before reading this post, I myself had considered the main secret of this novel to be the secret between the man and the boy. As the story progresses, situations get worse and worse, but the father never tells the boy exactly how bad things are going to be. However, I now see the significance of the author's secret to the readers. It is quite clear that the main emphasis of the novel is intended to be on the survival of the man and the boy, and not the present state of the country. Keeping this secret shifts the focus of the readers to the characters and their struggles.
The examples you gave pretty well illustrate what happened, but also I found an example on page 59:
Did you have any friends?
Yes. I did. [...]
What happened to them?
They died.
All of them?
Yes. All of them.
It is never explained how these people died. It can be assumed it was starvation, or maybe they were the victims of cannibals, but it is never mentioned, so the reader never really thinks about it again.
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