In the novel Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, he illustrates how bloody and gruesome the expansion to the west really was. Deconstruction is defined as “a critique of the hierarchical oppositions that have structured western thought: inside/outside, mind/body, literal/metaphorical, speech/writing, presence/absence, nature/culture, form/meaning” (Culler 126). The author uses deconstruction so that the reader can see how dark the movement to the west was. As previously mentioned, deconstruction of a culture can take place in one’s mind, and by reading this book, the reader’s thoughts on American westward expansion changes because of the dark elements the author uses in his book. McCarthy does this in several ways such as using vivid details about the many battles and fights that happen on the Kid’s journey west, maintaining historical accuracy throughout, and the constant struggle between good and evil. At the beginning of the novel, McCarthy introduces us to the Kid, who is pale and thin, and his parents. “His folks are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster”, which is a fancy word for teacher (McCarthy 3). His “mother, dead these fourteen years, did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off” (McCarthy 3). The Kid can neither read nor write and he already has the taste for violence. When he is fourteen he decides to run away and heads west as far as Memphis with no knowledge of what to expect and no real survival skills. As stated before, the Kid already had a taste for violence, and it is portrayed twice at the beginning of the novel. The first instance is when he runs into a drunken man outside of a bar because the Kid would not get out of the wa... ... middle of paper ... ... expansion, or the Judge, rolled through and conquered. The exploration of the west was no walk in the park. There were some bloody and gruesome battles that took place. In Cormac McCarthy’s novel, Blood Meridian, he demonstrates how bloody and gruesome the expansion to the west really was. The author uses the literary theory of Deconstruction to show the reader how dark this era really was. McCarthy demonstrates this by using vivid detail during the fights and battles, while staying historically accurate, with the constant presence between good and evil throughout the novel. Works Cited Culler, Jonathan D. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Print John Emil Sepich The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Fall, 1991), pp. 16-31 McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian: In the Evening Redness in the West. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
These particular journeys would be featured as a two part series on the victims of manifest destiny. The beginning part of the first episode should discuss the theory of manifest destiny, opening with George Berkeley’s “Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.” The last two lines of the poem should be emphasized as it discusses “…Westward the course of empire takes its way. The first four Acts already past, a fifth shall close the Drama with the day; time 's noblest offspring is the last.” This particular poem inspired Americans to claim land westward, as well as different painters to depict such action such as: Thomas Cole and Emmanuel Leutze. Leutze painted a picture with the title “Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way.” This poem also depicts America as the last great civilization. It also reflects the ideas of the people during this time period. This idea Americans starting to move westward was depicted in the painting by Leutze. The painting ...
Updike, John. "A & P." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 2nd Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1990. 407-411.
The West: From Lewis and Clark and Wounded Knee: The Turbulent Story of the Settling of Frontier America.
could not bring himself to kill a innocent little boy so he gave him to a
Lauter, Paul, vol. 1, 3rd ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Pub: by Houghton Mifflin, 19
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Alex Vernon. "Staging Violence in West's "The Day of the Locust" and Shepard's "True West"." South Atlantic Review 65.1 (2000): 132-151. Print.
Milner, Clyde A, ed. The Oxford History of the American West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
was a naive child at the beginning of the novel, but by the end the
Children are seen as adorable, fun loving, and hard to control. Ida Fink uses a child in “The Key Game” to be the key to this family’s life. The setting is placed during the start of World War II; Jews all around were being taken. Fink uses a boy who doesn’t look the traditional Jewish, “And their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child” (Fink). As they read on the emotional connection is stronger because there is a face to go with this character. Fink draws a reader in by making connections to a family member the reader may know. A blue-eyed, chubby child is the picture child of America. A child in any story makes readers more attached especially if they have children of their own. The child is three way too young to be responsible for the safety of the father, yet has to be. Throughout the story, we see how the mother struggles with making her child play the game because no child should be responsible like
Winter in the Blood, a Native American novel written by James Welch, takes place on a cattle ranch in Montana, around 1970. On the surface, this is a story of a Blackfoot Indian sleepwalking through his life, tormented by visions, in search of a connection to his heritage. Welch's language is, at once, blunt and poetic, and the pictures it conjures are dreamlike and disquieting. Furthermore, the narrator of the novel is disheartened by the loss of his brother, Mose, and his father, First Raise ? the two most cherished people in his life. After struggling with guilt, sorrow, and alcoholism, the narrator overcomes these down falls through re-identifying with himself and his culture? specifically through the help of his grandfather, Yellow Calf.
In the story and the movie the kid was extremely underestimated and later proved to be a serious pain in the butt. In the movie the thieves tried to just walk in the house and rob Kevin, but in the house there were many traps and surprises waiting for the thieves to protect himself and his home (Home Alone) This shows how the thieves attempted to rob little Kevin and didn’t expect much of a challenge but he showed them that he was a force to be reckoned with. In the story the author stated “ We knew that Summit couldn’t come after us with anything stronger than the police and a few lazy bloodhounds. And maybe in the Weekly Farmer’s Budget. So, it looked good.”(O’Henry 62) This illustrates that the thieves didn’t think anything could go wrong with there plan and they weren’t even worried about the kid. But later on their plan failed miserably and they ended up having to pay Mr. Dorset instead. In both the story and the movie the criminals ended up getting injured in someway. In the story written by O’Henry “He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back, explained Bill. Then he mashed it with his foot.” (O’Henry 66). This proves that in the short story one of the criminals were hurt by the kid. I'm almost positive a red-hot potato isn’t going to feel very good on your skin. In the movie when Marv went up to the door Kevin aimed his pellet gun out of the doggie door and shot him in the private area. This was only
Lipking, Lawrence I, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1c. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.