AP Worthy or Nah?

Hi again! I hope you have enjoyed following my journey reading The Road as I shared my insights on the characters and authors craft. I thought I might share a little bit about why this is a perfect AP curriculum book and how it can help you for the exam.

When I first heard about this book, I thought, “How will this be of literary merit if literally all a father and son do is walk on a road?” I also did know of its existence until Carter shared about in class. A few days later when I was talking to my Uncle on the phone, (he’s an AP Literature teacher) he asked me what books I had read. I told him, and mentioned that I was thinking about reading The Road for my next free choice assignment. He said he loved it and taught it every year to his class.

The author, Cormac McCarthy should definitely be studied in an AP class. Typically I find description of settings and surroundings in stories boring, but not in The Road. I don’t know how he does it, but McCarthy can just captivate you, making you hang onto every word even if it’s his third page describing the same thing. He also writes in such a unique style by using no chapters and not giving the characters names or developing them through their words. The characters say at the most five words to each other yet I could write a paper on each character based on their actions and the descriptions of them.

I think the reason this novel is of literary merit is because the author takes limited characters with a limited plot and through description develops a suspenseful story. He makes a simple topic extremely complex. The reader can have several different takeaways from it. For example, someone might say the main theme is the strength of a father and son bond. Someone else might say the main theme is the inhumane part of humanity.  

Along with the author's use of description, he also uses tone, imagery, and flashbacks throughout the story. The majority of the novel is written in a dark, negative tone as the reader wants to have hope for the characters but they continue to run out of food and become ill. The story becomes mysterious at parts when the father wants to explore houses for food and warm clothes and the son tells him not to go in because he has a bad feeling and is scared. The author changes to a positive, light tone when the father and son do find food as you can feel their excitement. We also experience a few flashbacks as the reader in the beginning of the book gets little insight on the mother, allowing you to develop her further in your head.

This text can definitely help you when taking the AP exam too with several different essay prompts. Any question regarding description, the use of character development, obstacles a character faces, perseverance, and many more can have this novel applied to the prompt. I also think it should be added to Hopkinton’s AP curriculum because there is so much analysis that can be done with McCarthy’s depth of description. It’s also not like many other books in the way it’s written.