The Road
The Importance of being Earnest
Thesis: All novels have soe connection to past stories and draw upon literary traditions but many diverge from these to shape a new story with different plot structure or characters adding new and vital elements to literature
Explanation of Book 1: the Road is a novel by Cormac Mcarthy following a father and his son’s journey through a barren post apocalyptic landscape as they attempt to find a respite from the harsh world they find themselves in
Explanation of Book 2: The importance of being earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde following a comedy of errors that result from mistaken identities and attempts to escape the monotony of upper class life
Idea 1: Genre (conventions from past stories)
- Wilde follows the “well made play”
- which has a focus on “complex and highly artificial plotting, a build-up of suspense, a climactic scene in which all problems are resolved, and a happy ending.”. The ideas of building up suspense are shared by the novels and to some extent, the road also has a happy ending. However, the complexity and over-the-top plots are not shared. The suspense in the well-made play is often reliant on misunderstanding while the suspense in the road is built over repetitive scenes and the scale of the plot with the risk being death not the small risks of Earnest
Idea 2: Wilde changing genre while McCarthy based on old ideas
- Wilde creating a new type of character “the dandy” while The road is based on old forms of story such as the idea of the “quest” and the Grail
- Here link in The christian references that are part of the ‘grail’ story type as well as reference throughout the book
- Both strayed from some traditions with Wilde adding the character type and McCarthy’s almost dystopian novel that is devoid of any new civilisation
- But while mostly here earnest is the one that strays form convention in some ways it is more traditional
- Earnest follows a traditional narrative structure (although very dramatically) while the Road strays from it with many monotone repetitive moments so although tensions is slowly building there is little action
Idea 3: Within the story – autobiographical videas
- But a similarity is that the dandy was based on Wilde himself and the relationship of father and son was based on McCarthy’s own life
- Past stories could also be autobiographical storys that influenced the writing