Cormac McCarthy uses a variety of literary techniques in “The Road” to establish his opinions on a wide range of themes. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, the way McCarthy describes scenes in the novel distinctly conveys the bleak world he has created. Punctuation is particularly poor as simple grammatical rules (such as the use of commas, dashes, etc.) are ignored – this maintains the minimalist style of the novel, reducing the content to the essentials. McCarthy seems to play with this style, as he experiments with the use of contractions – for example, on page 2, he uses an apostrophe in “there'd” but dismisses any possibility of regularity of this in “hadnt”. The use of this literary device creates a somewhat ambiguous response in the reader, since the author's intentions are unclear and nebulous, similar to the atmosphere of the setting. We also note that McCarthy avoids the use of quotation marks, thus integrating dialogue with exposition, perhaps portraying the feelings of the novel's characters; these details are considered unimportant and perhaps even trivial in the post-apocalyptic world. Likewise, occasionally indents are not used to distinguish the beginning of the speech, but bleed into the prose – this is shown on page 9, in the lines “His face in the little light streaked with black by the rain like an old actor. Can I ask you something? he said". Furthermore, the fragmentation of this text portrays the broken world that the author seeks to describe, thus strengthening the impact of the scene. Furthermore, we are immediately aware of an indistinct sense of time; for example, we are told that the man “thought the month was October but wasn't sure. He hadn't kept a calendar in years. McCarthy cleverly informs the audience that time is irrelevant in this world, as the novel begins in the midst of the action, after the doom has occurred. Although the novel is structured chronologically, the timing is purposely presented as vague, seemingly unimportant, and somewhat banal in the present world, where only a dark and foggy atmosphere of the past life remains. McCarthy forms a strong sense of the scenes he describes through images. ; this technique is introduced in the second line, showing the meaning of epitome (“Dark nights beyond darkness and days each grayer than the one that went before.”). This ominous description immediately makes the scene incredibly dark; this idea is further strengthened as the novel evolves ("Cars on the street caked in ash, everything covered in ash and dust. Trace fossils in the dried mud.") The repetitive use of boring and humiliating adjectives to describe the remains of the city highlights the effects of an urban tragedy on society, leaving only broken remnants of the once “whole” world. The vision created by McCarthy is almost a representation of hell in real life, perhaps causing fear and deterrence in the reader. The word “ash” is used repeatedly throughout the description to support these ideas, so as to persuade the reader to consider these thoughts and perhaps develop their own interpretations and understandings of death. Probably the most common references present in "The Road" are those with religious connotations: these are introduced from the beginning of the novel, which gives an idea of ​​the depth of these ideas. For example, McCarthy personifies light in relation to the “pilgrims of a fable swallowed up and lost within the bowels of some granite beast.” This clear biblical reference showcases the journey the man and boy are on.