Canister Masks In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, McCarthy specifically chooses moments in the novel to get the readers anxious. An example of this is the scene in which the man and the boy come across a gang member and inevitably have to shoot him to stay alive. The shooting scene in the book is a significant moment that adds suspense, excitement, and danger. The scene starts with the man and the boy sleeping in an abandoned truck on the side of the road, until suddenly, the man is awakened by a noise down the road. The man then sees a large diesel truck driving their way with intimidating gang members aboard, “They came shuffling through the ash casting their hooded heads from side to side. Some of them wearing canister masks,” McCarthy explains(60). The man quickly wakes the boy and carries him out of the car hoping to escape the truck without the gang seeing them. He then carries himself and the boy through a break in the trees and hides in a ditch, and as the narrator tells us, “The boy was terrified”(61).

The man, in doubt of what to do, cocked his pistol and held it up to the gang members head. The man knew he had to act in control of the situation as to not give off a weak demeanor. The man stayed in control by telling the gang member what to do by saying, “Just keep coming. Don’t look back there. Look at me. If you call out you’re a dead man”(62-63). Although the man acted as though he was in control, he could tell the gang member was going to try and escape when the man asked him where he was going and he replied, “‘I don’t know,’” which ultimately resulted in the man shooting the gang member in the head