Key Episodes (Part 2)

Finding the cellar of naked and mutilated people (page 112-121)

This episode starts with the man and the boy finsing an old plantation house. Plantation houses were big, decadent manors built by the plantation owners, with slaves working the plantations. I've taken thid particular imagery as a comment on consumerism by McCarthy. The manor's were oppulent, grand and expensive, and funded by a dreadful slave trade that spread through the 'civlised world'. I think that McCarthy is trying to say that consumerism was at fault in the pre-apocalyptic world. This links back to the man and his cart; a shopping cart. Even in the post-apocalyptic world, the man is still attached to consumerism. Consumerism is also made evident in the references in this particular episode. McCarthy almost directly lifts a scene from the original Dawn of the Dead when the man and the boy find the emaciated people in the cellar, which mirrors the scene where the police officer's discover the zombies in the cellar. Dawn of the Dead featured scenes in shopping centres, highlighting consumerism. McCarthy references low-culture horror films (despite the fact that the Dawn of the Dead could be taken as a mockery of society) to highlight a fairly deep idea of consumerism being corrupt.

On page 113, the description of the manor shows luxury decaying within the house. The words chosen in the description have 'o' sounds (excuse the lack of terminology sir!), meaning that the descripiton has to be read slower, creating moments with low tension. Within the description, the scene in the cellar is foreshadowed. Piles of "Clothes and shoes. Belts. Coats. Blankets and old sleeping bags." were found in one room, which the man would have "ample of time later to think about." This leaves the reader wondering why/what is happening within the manor. However, the man ignores this blatent scene of habitation due to his crippling hunger. The boy picks up on such things ("Papa, the boy whispered."). This shows that the boy may be naive, but in some ways is better than his father as his father is rushing in without thinking. The man simply ignores his concern and tells him to "Shh." The man also ignores the "trampled grass", the "smell of mold and excrement", more signs of people. "All these things he saw and did not see." McCarthy has given the man a potentially threatening ignorance.

When the man first enters the cellar on page 116, the sentence length and frequency of punctuation varies incredibly. It starts off with fairly lengthy sentences, and then cuts to short sentences to increase the tension. It is very similar to the expectation of horror films (another reference to Dawn of the Dead) where the audience is left anticipating something to happen. The man finds "naked people, male and femal, all trying to hide." We can infer the people they find have been held captive by an unseen captor. One of the men they see has "legs gone to the hip and stumps of them blackened and burnt." The man's legs have been removed and the wounds cauterized. This infers canabalism, presumably by the captors. McCarthy shows us that humans can and will turn to any forms of survival, including cannabalism.

After this key scene, the man and the boy rush out of the cellar. Over the next two pages (116-117) the man repeatedly says "Jesus", "Christ" or "God". This could symbolise that people only turn to religion under times of need. It could also infer a slip in the man's front; for just a split second he acts as if he is pre-apocalptic. Previously, the land was described as being 'godless'. Now, he is accidentally referencing Christianity.

When the man and the boy have left the house, the man comes extremely close to killing the boy. "This is the moment." However, the man and they boy hide in the leaves and ash and the man doesn't shoot the boy. This mirrors the man's death towards the end of the novel when the man is dying in the leaves and cannot kill the boy, the one thing he had promised to do throughout the novel and to his wife.

The baby on the spit (page 210- 215)

Tension is created at the opening of this scene by the stillness half way through page 210.