Nancy Fotheringham Cato’s ‘The Road’ depicts an exhilarating, high-speed car journey in which

the speaker feels in control of both their surroundings and time itself. The narrator is heading in the
direction of the sun while pondering their position in the cosmos. Ultimately, the poem is a symbolic journey
towards hope and away from despair, typified by the narrator’s sense of agency in the face of the infinite
universe.

The Road (ANALYSIS)

Nancy Fotheringham Cato

Summary

‘The Road’ offers the reader the passenger seat in a high-speed journey towards the sunrise and the promise
offered by the dawn.

The poem begins with epic pronouncements from the narrator, including the claim that they mastered the
moon and controlled the passage of time. It quickly becomes apparent that the narrator is moving at great
speed and that it is the distorted view of their surroundings through the windows and windscreen that are
creating these sensations of control.

The poem continues to depict the narrator’s journey and establishes a contrast between the darkness they
are leaving behind and the light before them. This emphasizes the fact that, like all journeys, this drive is a
temporal voyage as well as a geographical one. The poem ends by reaffirming the narrator’s final goal, the
sun, and reminds the reader that the journey is never complete, as the narrator is chasing something that is
perpetually beyond their reach.

The Poem Analysis Take

Insights

The thing about this poem that I really like is the contrast between Fotheringham Cato's presentations of
time. She emphasizes the physical speed of the journey in order to invite questions about the more abstract
ways in which life sometimes feels as though it is slipping through our fingers. Using a physical journey to
represent a wider, more symbolic one is nothing new, but this poem does so extremely effectively.

Detailed Analysis

Stanza One

I made the rising moon go back

Behind the shouldering hill,

I raced along the eastern track

Till time itself stood still.

The poem begins with the use of the personal pronoun “I” which establishes one of the poem’s primary
concerns: the individual’s relationship to the geographical and temporal world. The hyperbolic claim that the
narrator “made the rising moon go back” emphasizes the notion that the moon and its surrounding darkness
are adversarial figures. Furthermore, by forcing the moon to retreat, the narrator suggests they can control
not only celestial objects but also the passage of time, which is so closely associated with the moon and its
movements.
This preoccupation with time continues into lines three and four, as shown through the
paradoxical comparison between the stillness of time and the rapid movement of the narrator. This
juxtaposition suggests the narrator does not see themselves as bound to the laws of time. The final line’s use
of alliteration forces the reader to slow their reading pace in order to pronounce each word clearly, which
mirrors the narrator’s claim that the passage of time is malleable.

Stanza Two

The stars swarmed on behind the trees,

But I sped fast at bay
I could have made the sun arise
And night turn back to day.

The writer uses zoomorphism when likening the stars to a group of swarming insects. This could suggest the
narrator feels a degree of dominance over nature. However, it could also indicate how overwhelmed they
felt by the stars because of their seemingly incomprehensible number. The stanza furthers the narrator’s
claim that they can control and even reverse the passage of time by metaphorically stating they could
“turn [night] back to day.” This distortion of linear time must have been intended to embody the
experience of a driver traveling at high speed due to the way their surroundings blur in their peripheral
vision as though they were moving through time.

Stanza Three

And like a long black carpet

Behind the wheels, the night

Unrolled across the countryside,

But all ahead was bright.

Stanza three begins by using a simile to describe the night as “like a long black carpet.” This is significant as
it reaffirms the association between night’s darkness and the forces of evil due to the
negative connotations of the adjective “black.” Perhaps more interestingly, though, the decision to liken
night to a carpet implies the narrator can traverse it as if they would a physical space.
This strengthens the narrator’s assertion that they can move through time as freely as their car moves
along the road.
The stanza’s final line establishes a dichotomy between the light that lies ahead of the car and the darkness
behind it. Therefore, the car and its driver occupy a liminal space that is neither light nor dark, thereby
showing the narrator to be beyond their control or influence.

Stanza Four

The fence-posts whizzed along wires

Like days that fly too fast
And telephone poles loom up like years
And slipped into the past.

The poetic gaze begins to linger on fleeting details that are visible through the windscreen as the car moves
at great speed. The use of alliteration in the first line evokes a sense of speed, which is reinforced by
the onomatopoeic verb “whizzed.” The poet also makes a point of embodying lengths of time within the
objects, as shown through a simile when the “telephone poles loomed up like years.” This could be intended
to display the narrator’s conflation of their geographical journey with a temporal one, as they can no longer
distinguish between physical objects and abstract concepts.
Stanza Five

And light and movement, sky and road

And life and time were one
While through the night, I rushed and sped
I drove towards the sun.

The final stanza makes the aforementioned conflation explicit by metaphorically blurring the boundaries
between the narrator’s surroundings and the concepts of life and time themselves. This conflation serves to
simplify the narrator’s

journey by implying it to be a spiritual transition from darkness to light rather than merely a journey that
begins during the night but continues into the following day. There is perhaps a level of irony to the focus
on the dawn ahead, given the dangers of driving so fast at night. It could be that the light ahead that the
narrator represents an afterlife they might soon journey to if their reckless behavior has fatal consequences.

What does the rising sun represent?

The significance of the dawn complicated by the fact that the rising sun already possesses
many meanings before its usage in the poem. Ordinarily, one might associate dawn with new beginnings and
therefore view it as a hopeful symbol. However, given the narrator’s disregard for the linear passage of time,
in this poem, the dawn may serve as a warning that humanity is running out of new beginnings.

Another meaning of the rising sun that is pertinent to this poem is the enduring association between light
and the divine, particularly heaven. This is important as the driver’s behavior is reckless and the rising sun
could foretell their death.

What does the “shouldering hill” mean?

Ordinarily, when one uses the phrase “to shoulder”, it means that they are taking on a burden of some kind,
either literal or figurative. Therefore, it could suggest that the hill must bear the weight of the moon or,
perhaps more interestingly, the responsibility for the passing of time. Given Fotheringham Cato’s enduring
interest in environmental and conservation issues, it could imply that some force, possibly caused by human
actions, has overburdened nature.