{"id":248,"date":"2012-10-31T15:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/knownworld\/?p=248"},"modified":"2012-10-31T15:06:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T19:06:10","slug":"blood-gore-and-death-in-blood-meridian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/2012\/10\/31\/blood-gore-and-death-in-blood-meridian\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood, Gore, and Death in Blood Meridian"},"content":{"rendered":"

After watching the first episode of Heimat<\/em>, the violence, blood, and death in Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Blood Meridian: or the Redness in the West<\/em> probably seems simply atrocious.\u00a0 Is the thirst for violence just an innate quality or a product of the kid\u2019s environment? \u00a0On the very first page of Chapter 1, we learn the kid \u201calready [has] a taste for mindless violence\u201d (McCarthy, 3).\u00a0 This desire for \u201cmindless violence\u201d appears throughout the first six chapters, especially in the scene where we first meet the judge and the scene in the bar.\u00a0 McCarthy also includes graphic passages depicting death, such as the attack on the plane.\u00a0 What does this overabundance of violence do to the characters?\u00a0 And what does it do to us as the readers?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The scene with the judge interests me because of the \u201cmindless violence\u201d that occurs.\u00a0 The judge enters the tent where the reverend is speaking, and announces to the crowd, \u201cLadies and gentlemen I feel it my duty to inform you that the man\u2026is an imposter\u2026also wanted by the law\u2026\u201d (McCarthy, 6-7).\u00a0 The judge seems to want a reaction from the crowd, when he easily could have confronted the reverend after the sermon.\u00a0 He certainly gets a reaction: a man fired his pistol at the reverend and the tent was filled with \u201cfolk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud\u201d (McCarthy, 7).\u00a0 Later at the bar, the revelation from the judge, \u201cI never laid eyes on the man before today.\u00a0 Never even heard of him,\u201d seems to shock the crowd into \u201ca strange silence\u201d (McCarthy, 8).\u00a0 It certainly shocked me!\u00a0 What shocked me even more, however, was what happened after the judge spoke: \u201cFinally someone began to laugh\u2026someone bought the judge a drink\u201d (McCarthy, 8).\u00a0 I am not sure if this type of event is historically accurate, but its inclusion in Blood Meridian<\/em> implies that people accepted these accusations \u2013 of a reverend, nonetheless \u2013 and acts of violence as unavoidable part of life.<\/p>\n

One time we see the kid\u2019s \u201ctaste for mindless violence\u201d is in the bar at Bexar.\u00a0 The kid has no money to pay for a drink but offers to work for it.\u00a0 Anger builds in both the kid and the barman, perhaps due to the language barrier, until the barman produces a pistol from under the bar.\u00a0 There is nothing theatrical about the killing that follows, as one might expect after watching dramatic Westerns with suspenseful scenes.\u00a0 McCarthy\u2019s words are certainly descriptive, but they do not overdramatize the killing; rather, they seem matter-of-fact.\u00a0 The kid simply \u201cbroke the right one over the man\u2019s head\u2026and he backhanded the second bottle across the barman\u2019s skull and crammed the jagged remnant into his eye\u201d (McCarthy, 25). McCarthy promptly moves on, spending no more time on the death, and neither does the kid.\u00a0 The kid \u201ctook another bottle and tucked it under his arm and walked out the door\u201d (McCarthy, 26).\u00a0 Did the barman spur the kid into acts of violence, or the kid want a drink so badly that he was willing to kill for it?<\/p>\n

If the killing in Bexar seems bad, the later scenes must appear horrific.\u00a0 Perhaps the aftermath of the attack on the plain in Chapter 4 best exemplifies this horrific violence.\u00a0 After sweeping through the group, the attackers \u201cpass[ed] theirs blades about the skulls, snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies\u201d (McCarthy, 54).\u00a0 The attackers even appear \u201cso slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs\u201d (McCarthy, 55).<\/p>\n

Is it possible to become desensitized from this much blood and gore?\u00a0 McCarthy\u2019s writing seems to suggest so.\u00a0 Yes, he spends almost two pages describing the attack, but he focuses on the actions of people, the physical damage, and the flesh, rather than emotional descriptions.\u00a0 One example of this desensitization occurs when a Kentuckian describes a battle at Chihuahua.\u00a0 \u201cThe dames of the city\u2026picnicked and watched the battle,\u201d seeming to regard the death and war in front of them as entertainment (McCarthy, 76).\u00a0 They even \u201ccould hear the moans of the dying out on the plain,\u201d yet they did nothing (McCarthy, 76).<\/p>\n

As we continue reading Blood Meridian, <\/em>we should pay attention to McCarthy\u2019s descriptions of violence and death.\u00a0 What else do these acts of violence show us about the characters?\u00a0 About society at that time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching the first episode of Heimat, the violence, blood, and death in Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Blood Meridian: or the Redness in the West probably seems simply atrocious.\u00a0 Is the thirst for violence just an innate quality or a product of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41605,20187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blood-meridian","category-student-generated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/knownworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}