Why is it AP?

To be one hundred percent honest, I am not totally convinced The Road is of AP merit, or at least, certainly not one of the better books to read for the purpose of completing an AP question or assignment.  While The Road is an entertaining, deep, and advanced read, it is not quite what you would expect out of a standard AP novel such as Song of Solomon, Handmaid's Tale, and Brave New World.  These three titles generally go into great depths tackling issues with society and criticizing our social structure as part of a much bigger elaborate theme hiding just below the surface.  These three novels use technique and style as well as motifs and allusions to tell this second story. The novels flow nicely allowing for a fun face value read, while also providing layers for further analysis in class or in an essay for an AP exam.   While The Road certainly explores the nature vs. nurture debate and demonstrates the fluctuation of what's considered humane within society, and what's considered humane within a post apocalyptic world, I notice the novel missing some level of potential analysis.  Obviously, everything can be analyzed if you work at it hard enough, but some stylistic elements such as motifs and allusions seem to be missing.  The Road is a great novel that certainly elicits a higher level of thinking and reflection upon one’s self.  However, it is not a strong leader in the elaborate artistic style of writing.  Much of its beauty and meaning comes from the blunt truth of a situation.  This can be a breath of fresh air to any reader, however, it makes it more difficult for a teacher to use this novel as an example for strong technique and the use of literary devices to convey a larger theme.

This is not to say The Road is a terrible, unworthy book with little intelligence.  The Road is a great read with some elements that are certainly worth looking into on an AP level.  The Road has amazing character development and strong relationships between characters that very clearly alter their personalities and add an interesting dynamic to the novel.  As mentioned in a previous blogpost, the boy seems to act as an anchor for the man’s sanity.  The boy keeps the man’s morals in check and gives the man hope for the continuation of the torch.  In addition to this, the man tends to take all responsibility for the boy’s actions even when the action was clearly the boy’s fault.  This is seen in two different places as the boy leaves the gas on the stove on all night and leaves the gun on the beach.  In both cases the boy is clearly at fault, however, the man apologizes to the boy and takes responsibility for both situations.  In my opinion this is not normal behavior for the average father-son relationship.  This would be a good point in the novel to analyze how the father and the boy’s relationship could be affected by this new world.  It is important to note the shift in the man’s perception of right and wrong as he realizes he is beginning to die and will soon leave his son.  The man dreams more of his wife and happiness while becoming more brash towards the world in terms of survival.  The man focuses on survival more and begins to lose some value for morals, this is seen as he forces the thief to strip naked and abandons him in the road to die.  Needless to say this a post about the AP value of The Road so I will try to stay away from the analyzation of this scene but simply call it to attention as an example of the interesting character development that may be worth further study.  

The Road is a very intelligent, well written novel that is worth reading and certainly has some aspects (character development) worth talking about.  However, while the lack of motifs, allusions, and other literary devices may be a good change up and make the book a more unique read, The Road, in a  sense loses some of its analytical value which is very important for its use in an AP level course.