Voice and Point of View

The Road is written in the third person, in the voice of an omniscient narrator, with the characters referred to as ‘he’ or ‘the boy’. However, within this, McCarthy manipulates and plays with the narrative voice and the point of view from which the story is seen. Here are some of the things you might find interesting to explore in relation to the narrative voice of The Road: 

• –  3rd person voice, omniscient point of view
• –  3rd person voice, from the point of view of the man
• –  3rd person voice, from the point of view of the boy
• –  unattributed dialogue (i.e. without ‘he said’)
• –  decontextualised dialogue (without commentary from the narrator)
• –  unattributed thoughts (i.e. without ‘he thought’)
• –  not signalling where the narrative ends and dialogue or the thoughts of a character in the first person begin
• –  dream sequences related without a clear sense of whether it is in the third or first person
• –  3rd person free indirect style where the reader not only feels he/she is seeing events from a character’s perspective but that it is in the character’s own words, not those of the narrative voice. 

P.G 32

• Free indirect style
• McCarthy does this to make the reader question who is narrating and possibly confuse them because it seems as though there is a second narrator who speaks about there being 'no godspoken men.'
• He changes his point of view during this part he asks a rhetorical question and this could possibly mean that the man is talking to someone. He also may have lost his faith with god when his wife killed herself.  
• It leaves the reader asking more questions about the man and what actually happened to him
• It could also link to an omniscient narrator because of the god like voice maybe it could actually be god telling the story and that's why it is so important they keep the light as a sign of faith
• However could come across as the man having an inner thought. He doesn't usually let these emotions show because he thinks if he blocks them out everything will be for the better and he won't get upset thinking back about his wife.