The Road Vs Bel Canto: Comparison and Contrast

Thesis Statement

Two contrasting tales, one of ill gotten riches, the other of pain and perseverance. Our essence is in the past events of our lives.

 

“Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.”

― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

 

“He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gouged his ability to love.”

― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

 

“He realized now he was only just beginning to see the full extent to which it was his destiny to follow, to walk blindly into fates he could never understand. In fate there was reward, in turning over one's heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!”

― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

 

 “Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed with mystery.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, '' he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, don't you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Ill. Gotten Wealth

I'll get wealth and income, people doing things to get what they want and not caring about any legal standings on that issue.

The story of the Bel Canto revolves around the accumulated wealth of a mier through lies and deceit. A Bel Canto plot is initiated by those who are trying to accumulator wealth through murder and genocide. The rebels in Sierra Leone are fighting over territory or land, most of which contain large amounts of natural minerals like diamonds.  The main character, The Road, hides his true past by telling a series of lies and complicated stories. Jay Gatsby makes millions of dollars and lives a very lavish lifestyle with his ill gotten income. He throws large parties and buys expensive luxury items.  As the head of a large alcohol smuggling syndication, the main character Gatsby has many dramatic elements surrounding that choice of lifestyle and some of the negative repercussions before him. One of the complications the author highlights, is the intake of alcoholic beverages the characters indulge in throughout the novel. The characters in financial positions of power make damming decisions that have a negative effect on others in the story and ultimately themselves. 

“What's the bravest thing you ever did?

He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Perseverance 

Both stories have a strong message of persevering through difficulties. The main character in The Road faces many hardships in her life and continues to try, persevering through them. The same can be said for Gatsby, his true upbringing offered many opportunities for difficulty but he amassed a vast fortune through his trials. Perseverance is important to success. If you give up, then you have failed at a task regardless of what it is. The ability to maintain morale and focus through difficult times is imperative. Both Characters in the stories have a strong drive and sense of spirit. In both of these stories, the main characters both have obstacles they have to face and strive to rise above them.

In the story the Road, Viggo originally tells stories of hard work and powerful relatives. He goes so far as to say he is related to the German Kaiser, who would have been exceedingly wealthy.  

Part of storytelling involves manipulating the emotions of the audience it’s reaching. This means dramatic situations and ideas, music that changes the general tone and atmosphere, costumes that depict status that may be apparent and understood regardless of the current time period. “Breaking the walls” of show business is another way to change the audience's mood and involve them intellectually. In some instances the producers will specifically target emotional responses to ensure customer or audience satisfaction, with predicted results.

Soliloquies are used to inform and interact with the audience in a manner that doesn't disturb the story. In some cases, these can be sad or foreboding monologues that outline coming or past events that affect the substance of the tale or production at hand. In other cases, they can be used to offer a comic relief to the audience; keeping their attention to the story. Like breaking the fourth wall (addressing the audience) a soliloquy is a way for a character to personally address the audience.  

“Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counter spectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hidrotic and coldly secular. The silence.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“On this road there are no god spoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“It took two days to cross that ashen scabland. The road beyond fell away on every side. It's snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A single gray flake sifting down. He caught it in his hand and watched it expire there like the last host of Christendom.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Look around you, he said. There is no prophet in the earth's long chronicle who's not honored here today. Whatever form you spoke of you were right.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a fever land.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Trousers rolled to the knee but still they got wet. They tied the rope to a cleat at the rear of the boat and rowed back across the lake, jerking the stump slowly behind them. By then it was already evening. Just the slow periodic rack and shuffle of the oarlocks. The lake has dark glass and window lights coming on along the shore. A radio somewhere. Neither of them had spoken a word. This was the perfect day of childhood. This is the day to shape the days upon.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

You'd think a man that had waited eighty some odd years for God to come into his life, well, you'd think he'd come. If he didn't you'd still have to figure that he knew what he was doin. I don't know what other description of God you could have. So what you end up with is that those he has spoken to are the ones that must have needed it the worst. That's not an easy thing to accept.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, '' he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, don't you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“He'd stop and lean on the cart and the boy would go on and then stop and look back and he would raise his weeping eyes and see him standing there in the road looking back at him from some unimaginable future, glowing in that waste like a tabernacle.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 

“Always so deliberate, hardly surprised by the most outlandish events. A creation perfectly evolved to meet its own end. They sat at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight a midnight supper and watched distant cities burn.”

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Conclusion

Both of these stories have contrasting ideas, but the point of each one is human perseverance over difficult ordeals. In both instances, the main characters go through many hardships but rise through them and find new meaning. Perseverance is important to success. Having a strong will with personal goals, will help start one on their way to a positive future.

References

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/245494-the-great-gatsby?page=7

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/krystieyandoli/the-most-beautiful-sentences-in-the-great-gatsby?utm_term=.sm6KDv0ZG#.oymv5lwr3