Identify and Sort ENG2D

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.

     In my opinion, the five most important elements of The Road in order of their engagement are as follows:

1. Mood
2. Conflict
3. Suspense
4. Setting
5. Plausibility

      I have chosen mood as the most important element because, without the mood of the story, the reader would not care for the Road's characters.  The Road is not a plot based book.  It tells the story of a father and his son's survival after a world wide catastrophe, relying heavily on their internal struggles.  Without such a heavy mood, the reader can not emphathize well with the characters.  This would lead to a lack of interest in the story as the main aspects of any fiction book are its plot and characters.  For example, here is a quote:

     "She held his (the father's) hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress.  Freeze this frame.  Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned."  (McCarthy 19)

     It was hard (at least for me) not to have some amount of pity for the father after reading this.  The quote gave me the impression that, before the catastrophe, the father was a pretty happy guy.  Then, all of the warmth and comfort of his old environment were destroyed.  He was plunged into a new world, filled with a harshness that he had yet to experience.  This new empathy allows me to be further engrossed in the book as I now have a desire for the father to become happy once again.