Many critics sometimes argue that McCarthy primarily uses a limited palette however there are frequent instances where rich lyricism has been used. For example...
"cold glaucoma dimming away the world"
"granitic beast"
"great pendulum in its rotunda"
"blowsy plumage in the still autumn"
"certain ancient frescoes entombed"
These extracts occur within the first 20 pages where McCarthy establishes each genre that The Road falls into. After these many of the poetic language occurs when the man is reminiscing about the woman as death is personified as a "lover". Language is used in this way as it differentiates between the monotonous journey along the road.

The explicit description of how the man shoots the road rat perhaps gives insight into a possible military background. Furthermore the description of brain sections "frontal lobe...colliculus and temporal gyrus" indicates to a medical background yet dispels this when he states "I'm not anything". The fact the reader is never truly shown what the man was prior to the apocalypse emphasises how unimportant daily tasks and jobs actually are in a world where nothing other than bare essentials and survival skills matter.

The lumbering and creaking of the truck is linked to the flying Dutchman as the sound reminds the reader that death is ever present and connotes that death will follow the two characters throughout the novel and will eventually reach them.