Artem Yudin
Slavic R5A SP14
April 1, 2014
‘Blood Meridian’ as an ‘Anti-Western’
In a single sense, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is a book in regards to the West; it is just a book that bridges this gap between your “old” mythological along with the “new” revisionist Traditional Western and creates a brand new direction to the genre to follow along with that of a more practical myth. It works by using and inverts various classic tasks of the cliché Western and sets them having themes in addition to issues connected with modern traditional interpretations of the West, generating a brand new type of Western. The novel follows an adolescent runaway from home with some sort of disposition intended for violence, acknowledged only as "the kid, " who had been born inside Tennessee during the famous Leonids meteor showers of 1833. Inside late 1840s, he first meets a large and absolutely hairless personality, Judge Holden, for a religious resurrection in Nacogdoches, Texas. There, Holden displays his darker nature by falsely accusing some sort of preacher involving raping both a little daughter girl plus a goat, inciting these attending the actual revival to physically strike and kill the preacher.
It's a critique within the process through which “history, ” (the textual portrayal of prior events whereby thematic routine and significance are unnaturally imposed) is created and continuously recreated to install the hegemonic ethnical narrative. The persona of judge Holden serves just as one instrument in which McCarthy indicates us this subjective nature with the process of documenting heritage and how it might be misused. Within the context of Western National historiography, McCarthy contains a mirror to both “old” in addition to “ne...
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...memory” in this way fails your writer inside Blood Meridian, and then this is because of your historylessness on the historical moment where he produces the history.” Blood Meridian isn't simply the Western, nor can it be an anti-Western. It stands being a “kind connected with straining within the limits connected with contemporary artistic practice, a pushing against the barriers on the mode connected with intellectual production where McCarthy detects himself situated. This Western, being a genre, only serves being a relevant point or placing for McCarthy’s greater discussion connected with a history due to the fact, within one’s spheres connected with academia along with pop culture; the West is an area connected with history that is certainly currently getting deconstructed along with re-interpreted to match a completely new American ethnic identity.
Local histories written in the nineteenth century are often neglected today. Yet from these accounts, one can see a pattern develop: the myth of Indian extinction, the superiority of White colonists and also to understand how American attitudes and values evolved. The myths were put forth for a reason according to Jean O’Brien. O’Brien explains how the process came to fruition in Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England. In the majority of local town histories, Indians are mentioned in passing, as a past that will never return. Indians were ancient, whereas English colonists brought modernity to New England. Jean O’Brien argues that local histories were the primary means by which white European Americans asserted
Imperialism has been a constant oppressive force upon societies dating back hundreds of years. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, illustrates this oppression by providing an instance of its occurrence in the Congo of Africa, while simultaneously setting the stage for The Poisonwood Bible, which is essentially the continuation of the story. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, demonstrates how the Congo is still affected by modern circumstances and ideology. Conrad’s novella acts as a sort of precursor to the events later depicted in Kingsolver’s novel, and this very connection between the stories illustrates the perpetual oppression of imperialism. This oppression is shown through the characterization of the pivotal characters of each respective text.
Director Jim Jarmusch’s film Deadman displays many of the accepted conventions for Western genre films, but manipulated in such a way as to create a revisionist, rather than a classical, western. The most obvious example of this manipulation are the characterizations of the hero, William Blake, and his Native American partner, Nobody. Blake is an awkward easterner who travels westward unaware of the different rules governing western life, instead of the rugged, knowledgeable outdoorsman who “does what he has to do” to defend justice and honor. Nobody’s character is unusually independent, educated, and kind towards Blake, instead of the traditional Western genre’s violent, unintelligent Indian.
Cormac McCarthy's setting in Blood Meridian is a landscape of endless and diverse beauty. McCarthy highlights the surprising beauty of combinations of scrubby plants, jagged rock, and the fused auburn and crimson colors of the fiery wasteland that frame this nightmarish novel. Various descriptions, from the desolate to the scenic, feature McCarthy's highly wrought, lyrical prose. Such descriptions of the divine landscape seem to serve a dual function. While being an isolated highlight to this gruesome novel, McCarthy's beautiful setting also serves as an intricate device in defining the novel's themes and creating the reality in which it is set.
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
Blood Meridian Or the Evening Redness in the West, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a classical American novel that conveys readers into experiencing fear, sadness, and disgust. Regeneration and violence are common features of the myth of the west, even on the cover of novel, Michael Herr states that Blood Meridian is “a classic American novel of regeneration through violence.” Blood Meridian goes far beyond into the dark depths of humanity and is unquestionably the goriest novel. In this novel, McCarthy manages to capture the history of violence and blo...
The story is an Eastern take on the Hollywood western with a dash of satire,
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.
A nation formed from the blood of an entire culture. The Revisionist Western Film, Geronimo: An American Legend, (1993) directed by Walter Hill, sheds light on the events that transpired as the Whites migrated and expanded towards the West. The theme of this movie revolves around the oppression and injustices committed on the “inferior” Apache race by the “superior” Whites, and the conflicts that ensued from it. In the face of oppression and injustice, one will go to great lengths to protect and preserve one’s liberty, and likewise, it can also alter the conviction of an outsider.
McCarthy’s use of biblical allusions help to create a setting in which all the characters have more complex parts to play than what it seems like at first glance. The allusions also create the tone, which is somber, and almost dream like. The protagonist had his “palms up” while sleeping, which could mean that he fell asleep as he was praying, or in other words pleading. Yet when he woke up “it was still dark”, this creates a hopeless ton because even after all of the begging, the world he woke up to was a dark one. When the wolf dies, the protagonist imagines her “running in the mountains” with different
In the 1930's Native Americans and women were viewed as inferior races. The films produced during the early part of the 20th century, particularly those starring John Wayne reflected these societal attitudes. The portrayal of minorities in Stagecoach and Fort Apache clearly reflect the views of society at that time. The depiction of the West is similar to that which is found in old history textbooks, em...
...ough his words refer to historical sources, they also apply to Douglas Monroy himself. Unveiling the intricacies of cultural interactions is a difficult task, and Monroy successfully reveals many of the complexities and contradictions of historical writing. However, he does not escape the tendency to create homogenous ?others.? Portions of his book, such as the treatment of Indians at the mission, are questionable. Although he maintains that his underlying theme is labor relations, the depth with which he writes about law and society seem to dictate a more holistic analysis. Labor relations among conflicting cultures may create history, but believing that history does not create labor relations seems unconvincingly economically determinist.
Native American’s place in United States history is not as simple as the story of innocent peace loving people forced off their lands by racist white Americans in a never-ending quest to quench their thirst for more land. Accordingly, attempts to simplify the indigenous experience to nothing more than victims of white aggression during the colonial period, and beyond, does an injustice to Native American history. As a result, historians hoping to shed light on the true history of native people during this period have brought new perceptive to the role Indians played in their own history. Consequently, the theme of power and whom controlled it over the course of Native American/European contact is being presented in new ways. Examining the evolving
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
The ‘fictionality’ of history is grounded in the simple assumption that life is shaped like a story. For Saleem, who is “buffeted by too much history”, it is his memory which creates his own history. “Memory, as well as fruit, is being saved from the corruption of the clocks”. This reflects back to concepts of time and place. Yet, for Rushdie, it is not based on the universal empty time that has been conceptualised by the colonisers. Notions of time and space are integrated into his own history.