Cormac Mccarthley Blood Meridian Symbolism

The literary theory I have chosen for the analysis on Blood Meridian written by Cormac McCarthy will be The Political Unconscious which looks into the political concept, social concept, and historical concepts in Blood Meridian. The connection that McCarthy made between the book and the events in the world, or society of today, are that of close resemblence of what humanity really is. The real side of human thought and action when pushed and developed in an unforgiving environment.

The political concept, is when the text is grasped as a “symbolic” act, where the imaginary response is to a real social problem. In Blood Meridian the act of scalping a dead enemy was occurring many times throughout the story. As evident in our past, Indians and other parties conducted such acts of scalping to their conquered foes. An act that many sought to be an act of great action for it showed what a great warrior you were. The social concept develops the background, to which the social class struggle is a factor for the situation in the novel. For this, the beliefs of the opposing classes, create a problem where they become the “prime determinant” which means the main factor to way certain classes do what they do. With the western expansion in the 1800s many people in the low class area expanded to the west to find a better life. Depending on what they were exposed to at a young age creates the outcome in which determines who they are in the future.

The third and last concept which is the historical concept which refers to the possibility as being the “ideology of form,” in which “the ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual form of a work tells the story”. The ideas and concept of the actions conducted...

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... of the Gang, the killing, scalping, torture and rape of the people affected by this “social class, group” which ever you want to call it affect the story tremendously. They create the idea of the “Bloody westerness” in which is in the title.

The connection that McCarthy made between the book and the events in the world, or society of today, are that of close resemblance of what humanity really is. The real side of human thought and action when pushed and developed in an unforgiving environment. Each concept reviles the connection of what people in the story and people in our own world are really about. That in reality, there are people that are just pure evil, and humanity has a dark side to it. When shaped and forged in the hardships which the kid and many other people in the story are dealt with they become that very same evil that in today’s world people face.