The novel The Road begins in medias res, which is a Latin phrase for "in the middle of things." The reader is thrown into the story much like the characters who fight for survival. A traditional exposition and rising action are not the hallmarks of horror or science fiction, which are organized around suspense and wonder. McCarthy places the reader in the middle of the action, walking on the road with the man and boy, staring at the ghastly images along the way. The climax has already happened (the apocalypse), and now we journey where none have gone before, as if into hell.
McCormac creates suspense by giving the man a gun with two bullets (there's two of them), and intermingling the horrific flashbacks of the mother's suicide along the way. Not only are there marauders and cannibals that the man must fight, but we wonder if he will end his son's life the way his wife wanted him to. In this way, the turn of each page could be a potential climax or resolution.
McCormac's novel is episodic in structure. It is series of episodes, vignettes, with no chapter titles or markers, only double-space breaks, so that the novel is organized very much like an unmarked journey, much like The Odyssey, Huckleberry Finn, and Catcher in the Rye. All these stories involved lonely characters who journey to unknown destinations, who have been alienated by the world around them, who battle antagonists and nature along the way.
The ending has elements of a Deux ex Machina, but if you go back and look for clues, you will find out that the man with the shotgun (and family) have indeed been following them for some time. And still, McCarthy leaves the novel open-ended, as the boy's future still looks bleak.
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