The Author's Corner

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is set in an apocalyptic world.  It follows the story of a man and his son as they journey towards to the shore.  There are no luxuries in their life, save a rare coca cola drink. For the man, the only priority is to survive and, more importantly, keep the boy alive. Throughout the novel, they must face multiple challenges: surviving weather, escaping cannibalistic men, and maintaining hope. 

In response to the survival theme, I chose to create a video focusing on three survival quotes. The overarching theme is staying in the present. 

I chose this as my first quote because it does a great job highlighting the complete destitution of the man and the boy's situation.    It also emphasizes the concern about staying in tune with the present. "Never to be" alludes to the future. "What never was" questions the past.  As such, the reader is struck by a very pessimistic viewpoint where the man seems constricted by a variable he has no control over: time. He is trapped in thinking, reacting, and observing what is in tandem with present time.  

My next quote, "he mistrusted all of that.  He said the right dream for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of langour and death", moves into the idea of dreaming and false hope. The man has dreams of his past, many of which involve his wife.  Some are happy, as I will explain in the final quote, while some are much more depressing.  For example, one of his dreams returns to the final conversation he has with his wife. She explain how there is no point in living and how it is hopeless to raise a son in such a cannibalistic, inhumane world.  In this quote we see that the man "mistrusts" his dreams.  This again returns to the previous discussion about staying focused only on the present.  However, I also chose this quote because it can, ironically, be used to show hope.  The man is convinced he will die; yet, instead of admitting defeat, he continues to fight death. The man lives on to protect his son, arguable a symbol for humanity, and does so even though he understands there is no hope for himself.  

The final quote I have chosen to represent the theme of staying in the present and survival recounts a daydream the man has about his wife as he plods down the road. During the day "there was no waking" from the dreams of the past as he could escape in his sleep.  The man reminisces on a memory of listening to music and hiding his wife's hand.  It is a beautiful image but ends in an ominous demand to "freeze this fame" and to "call down your dark and be damned." Such phrasing brings the reader back to reality.  He is fully aware that the world he daydreams about no longer exists and will never exist again.

It should also be noted that I use no personal narration in this project.  I purposefully only provided textual references to leave each quote up to the reader's own interpretations.  Since my first edition, I have also added phrases throughout the video to guide my viewer's thoughts. Please see below for the first draft without the phrases.  I have already explained my own reactions to the quotes above but am fully aware that my analyses are not a universal representation.  Thus, I hope to viewer will be able to construct his or her own interpretations of quotes I have provided with or without the thought-provoking phrases. 

Personally, I was surprised by how analytical I had to be with this project.  Similar to past assignments in other English classes, I had analyze quotes and articulate the underlying message while connecting it to a broader theme.  In my case, the themes I attempt to emphasize is present time and survival.  I took three quotes that I personally connected with and experimented with how visual and sonic elements enhanced their meaning.  This process took much more time to plan than it did to put the actual piece together. 

Originally I had planned on discussing around twelve different quotes; however, I found that it lacked cohesion and was far too repetitive.  Choosing three quotes gave me greater focus.  While watching this video, I hope the reader starts to realize how crucial the visual and sonic elements are to interpreting the quotes.  The enhancements are based on my interpretations as I attempt to guide the viewer to a certain emotion, but nonetheless it is a project that should deeply engage the reader into my own thoughts and the text itself.  

I. Soundlist

II. Audio Essay

III. Improvisation E-Poem

IV. Edited E-Poem

V. The Road Video

VI. Teaching with Sound