Table of contentsIntroductionFailure to follow punctuation rules in The RoadConclusionIntroductionIf a student tells his teacher that following grammatical rules is unnecessary for acceptable writing, the teacher would in all likelihood balk at the student's claim and continue to reinforce the need for proper punctuation. If someone asked Cormac McCarthy about the need for punctuation, he would probably respond the same way he did in a 2008 interview with Oprah Winfrey: "There's no reason to wipe the page with little marks strange. I mean, if you write correctly, you shouldn't have to punctuate. » McCarthy forgoes common punctuation rules in his novel The Road in order to convey the novel's underlying messages in a simplistic style. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom book. essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayThe Failure to Follow Punctuation Rules in The RoadMcCarthy's greatest deviation from conventional punctuation rules lies in his lack of quotation marks in dialogues. In one instance, McCarthy writes: “May I ask. do you have anything? he said. / Yes of course. / Are we going to die? / Not now. / And McCarthy's decision to refrain from quotation marks strongly influences how the reader interprets the text. The tone. The withholding of quotations gives the text a bare appearance, strikingly similar to the sterile setting of the novel. Dialogue is another channel the reader uses to grasp the desolation of the world. The reader needs as much insight into the world as possible to understand the world. striking difference between life today and the atmosphere of The Road. McCarthy's dialogue also contributes to the audience's understanding of the close bond between the man and the boy. The dialogue unfolds in such a way that the reader can almost hear the gentle conversation between the two characters. The atmosphere created by the absence of quotation marks reflects the solemn tone of the post-apocalyptic world. Additionally, quotation marks do not seem necessary for the audience to understand verbal communication and differentiate one character's dialogue from another. McCarthy not only simplifies his writing, but by excluding quotation marks he actually expands the meaning of the text. Although McCarthy occasionally places commas and colons in his writing, he largely keeps his punctuation to a bare minimum. In most cases, McCarthy chooses not to place a comma before conjunctions in compound sentences. An example of this can be found in the sentence: “They ate well but they were still far from the coast” (McCarthy 213). Generally, a comma would be located before the conjunction “but”. However, McCarthy chooses to simplify the sentence by refraining from using a comma and thus conveying the same meaning with less complexity. Most of the commas in The Road seem to be part of the attribution of dialogue. For example, McCarthy writes: "It's our new lamp, he says." Still on the same page, the text says: “Go, said the man” (McCarthy 135). The audience may assume that McCarthy includes commas around dialogue attribution to distinguish text from speech, which is especially useful in the absence of quotation marks. The colon appears sparingly in the text. When McCarthy incorporates colons, it contrasts with the sterile nature of the rest of the sentences. The contrast emphasizes information preceding and following the colon. One passage states: "In the morning the boy said nothing at all and when they were packed and ready to."