Blood Meridian Rhetorical Precis

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An important exchange in Blood Meridian is the contact between the kid and the hermit. The kid happens upon the hermit by chance, when he spots the smoke coming from the hut. The hut being away from the “king’s road,” shows the hermit’s insistence with shying away from society, since roads are usually built where there is heavy traffic of human movement, which ultimately leads to society, it also demonstrates that for some reason the hermit has a bias against society. The hut itself is very natural, with a “smell of earth” and “ceiling of woven limbs and mud.” The way McCarthy uses anchorite (a religious recluse) to describe the hermit, brings about an antithesis because usually a hermit is more thought of as secular, and not pious. Which then …show more content…

The hermit is a lonely person who is at odds with what he has done in his past life, being a slaver. He was probably a bounty hunter who caught escaping slaves in order to return them to their masters, the reader can infer that because he mentions that he paid the same price for the heart that others paid to catch the “black son of a bitch it hung inside of.” Even if it wasn’t, it can still be inferred that whatever happened in getting the slave, was a turning point for the Hermit’s life, because few people, if any just buy hearts. The heart was probably a symbol to him, and an important memoir of the sins done from his past life. All of that, plus the descriptions McCarthy gave about him and the hut, points to the hermit being a spiritual guide, or at least someone who can grasp the essence of …show more content…

Most of what is written is what is meant. In the beginning, he barely gives us a description of the kid or “child,” and the only thing we get about his character is that “in him broods already a taste for mindless violence.” Which until later, when we meet the hermit could the reader believe that the description was given either because violence was born in him from his father, or it was because the most innate instinct of humanity is violence. That bluntness is shown with the encounter with the hermit. For example, the hermit explicitly states his bias against society, which the reader could infer to be lust. The kid is more of a guide for the audience, we barely get to peer into his thoughts, and we also don’t get a name. The kid in this scene mostly listens to what the hermit says and does what the hermit tells him. It could be said, that meeting the hermit was a turning point in the kid’s life. After he met the Hermit, he experienced a greater magnitude of atrocities, from there being isolated bar fights and getting shot, to full on massacre of dozens of people with Captain White. The Hermit was a sort of doomsayer for the kid, meant to warn the kid of the inhospitality of the West, and how at it’s core, it is a violent and evil

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