The death of everything living – plants, trees, creatures and most other human beings – is evoked through the bleakness and ‘deadness’ of the language.

  The bleakness and dullness that McCarthy uses, does create the sense of everything being 'dead' which adds to the lost world that the man and boy find them selves in. McCarthy's chocie of language is bleak and his lack of hyperbolic language gives the reader a limited description of time, place and emotions (aspects of the narrative). Although McCarthy does telescope on some moments in the novel to emphasize the gore and loss of humanity. There is lots of references to the colour 'gray' when describing the landscape which shows the loss of colours, the different colours of the seasons which has seemed to have come to a stop- maybe representing life and it stopping. Whilst in the flashback to his uncle's farm everything is alive 'Yellow leaves' the cycle of life is going on and there is other colours in the world. This past memory gives the reader an insight into how the Earth was before it fell into this peril. On the road, nothing seems to change, it doesn't get better or worse and the landscape stays the same derelict dying environment which is created by this continuos pace of the journey along the road. In the beginning of the novel, McCarthy uses a metaphor to describe the world slowly deteriorating, as humanity fades away- 'cold glaucoma dimming away the world.' The darkness is taking over the world representing the evil 'bad guys' whilst the minority is the 'good guys' slowing dimming away. This also may be a reference to the Bible as Jesus is a symbol to represent the light of the world and as it is dimming away, the hope of God is also lost. 'Charred and limbless trunks of trees stretching away on every side'  McCarthy personifies the trees to create that sense that maybe only humans remain in this world, as all animal and plant life has perished. The constant reference to 'burning' and 'ash' and 'fire' may be a symbol of hell, as hell held a myth to be a world full of fire and burning- maybe referring to be 'alive in a dead world'. These references infer what might have happened to the Earth-either nuclear war or a mass fire. This creates vivid imagery and gives an insight into the state of the Earth in the novel, which as readers, we compare to our world now. McCarthy also uses pathetic fallacy 'It was raining' and 'It was very cold'. He is very simplistic in his chose of words to demonstrate the simplicity of this world they live in now, almost going back in time to when people hunted to survive. This technique of pathetic fallacy is also used in the father's flashback to his uncle's farm however contradicts the dullness of the Earth in the novel 'The shore was lined with birch trees that stood bone pale against the dark of the evergreens beyond' . Here life is still going on, there is use of the colour 'green' which shows nature and purity and healthiness- the world is still 'living'.  However the world that they live in now, is a 'dead world' full of darkness and loss of humanity.