McCarty's style and technique

'One of his eyes was burnt shut and his hair was but a nitty wig of ash upon his blackened skull. As they passed he looked down. As if he'd done something wrong. His shoes were bound up with wire and coated with roadtar and he sat there in silence, bent over in his rags. The boy kept looking back. Papa? he whispered.
What is wrong with the man?
He's been struck by lightening.
Can't we help him? Papa?
No. We can't help him.
The boy kept pulling at his coat. Papa? he said
Stop it.
Can't we help him Papa?
No. We can't help him. There's nothing to be done for him.'

As a redaer, we are encouraged to read it because the sentance structure lenghths are short which create a fast pace when reading it, however there are many full stops so it becomes quite fragmented. In this section, there is alot of questions and answers to the event that has just occured which demonstrates the puzzled and naive nature of the boy. The reader is in the same postion as the boy as he tries to find out what has happened and so does the reader. The father's response is very matter of fact which sets a tone of maybe anger as he is annoyed at the boy for asking so many questions. When read aloud, this section of dialogue should maybe be whispered as the boy doesn't want the injured man to hear them and upset him.

The chocie of vocabulary by McCarthy gives no rythm to the speech as they are generally short words he has used which makes the speech short and snappy. There is a similie used 'but a nitty wig' which describes the injured man.

There is repition of 'Papa' throught this novel and it appears frequently in this section. This is to indicate the significance of the boy being confused and puzzled and his want for his father's comfort and explanation and his desire for answers about what the world has become and why. There is also repition of question marks to show the boy's puzzled expression. The man repeats 'No. We can't help him.' to state the fact they can't take him with them and his way of dealing with the questions from the child without explanation.

The tone of this section doesn't particular remind me of  fairytales as the tone of misery and confusion is not generally used in fairytales. However it could have a resmblance with maybe poetry or play scripts has some poets use short sentances to get the point across and some plays use a monosyabillc tone when narratoring. I don't believe it has much referance to the Bible, as the section does not convey explanation which is what the Bible has the majority of but maybe this sense of an unclear message throughout the book links to the thme of the Bible as sometimes it is hard to find out what the moral is.

The majority of  the words used are monosyallibic which creates a tone that is dull with little expression. The effect on the reader from reading this section shows that the boy's innocence is still very protected by his father and his confusion about the injured man is not fully understood at the end of the section because we sense he still isn't enterialy sure why they cannot help him. The impact from this section leaves the reader beginning to understand why they cannot help others and why the boy is still so puzzled. We see the father and son relationship between the two charcaters and how they interact and how the father tries to deal with the situation.