Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more emotionally engaging.

 McCarthy's lack of emotional descriptions in the novel add to the fact that life on the Earth is ending and that humanity is becoming a lost moral. As we loose emotion and feelings in human behaviour, we become more animal like and block out the sense of humanity with interaction. Although McCarthy lacks hyperbolic language, the reader does still feel a sense of emotion through the simplicity of the characters speech and also the actions of the characters . The father tries to distance himself from the boy in order to protect him, the boy will learn to fend for himself and to not become too attached to his father. The father's conversational tone with the boy is blunt:
 'Can I ask you something?'
 'Yes. Of course' 
'Are we going to die?'
' Sometime. Not now.'
The boy is very naive and vulnerable but is not afraid of death it seems as he does not react to the fathers comment. McCarthy's monosyllabic tone continues the pace and drone of life around them- an on going journey that is the road. The boy's character differs from the fathers as the boy is protected through innocence, whilst the father deals with the loss and tragedy he has in his mind and understands what is happening to the world. The man begins to loose his humanity through the killing the 'roadrat' and also the stealing of the man's possessions and making him stand naked and alone in the road for punishment. However the boy is clinging to humanity and helps the father to. He is a symbol of the 'good guy' in the novel opposed to the 'roadrat' who is the 'bad guy'. The lack of variety of punctuation from McCarthy still makes the novel powerful as although there is no description, the reader can imagine how these actions reflect upon their emotional bond. 
 'I was going to run. To try to lead them away. But I can't leave you. ' 
The reader can emphasise with the characters as their situation is so dreary and although McCarthy shows that they are distanced, as readers we know they rely on each other to keep each other going. The boy refers to his father as 'Papa' all they way through the novel which shows he still wants that link between them to remain strong.
Although McCarthy uses limited emotions in the novel as readers we still can feel their emotion through the actions and suggestion of emotion of the character. McCarthy has done this to show how dull life has become-loss of humanity, everything is 'gray' and there is a constant looming of death and so using little emotion follows this pattern of nothingness.