''Blood Meridian Or The Evening Redness in the West'' is a

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to oth ...

by American author

Cormac McCarthy Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Got ...

, classified under the

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

, or sometimes the anti-Western, genre. McCarthy's fifth book, it was published by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. Set in the

American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the Geography of the United States, geography, History of the United States, history, Folklore of the United States, folklore, and Cultur ...

with a loose historical context, the narrative follows a fictional teenager from

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

referred to as "the kid", with the bulk of the text devoted to his experiences with the Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters who massacred American Indians and others in the

United States–Mexico border United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...

lands from 1849 to 1850 for bounty, sadistic pleasure, and eventually out of nihilistic habit. The role of

antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.Judge Holden, a physically massive, highly educated, preternaturally skilled member of the gang with pale and hairless skin who takes extreme sadistic pleasure in the destruction and domination of whatever he encounters, including children and docile animals. Although the novel initially received lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since become highly acclaimed and is widely recognized as McCarthy's ''

magnum opus A masterpiece, , or ; ; ) is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, ...

'' and one of the greatest American novels of all time, with some labelling the work as the

Great American Novel The "Great American Novel" (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is the term for a Western Canon, canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and Culture of the United States, character of the United States. The term was coined b ...

Plot

Born in

during the great meteor shower of 1833, a teenager referred to simply as "the kid" runs away from home, traveling south down the Mississippi River towards Texas. At a revivalist meeting in the town of Nacogdoches he meets the mysterious "Judge" Holden who denounces the revival's minister, Reverend Green, as a degenerate criminal, causing the tent to break out into chaos. Soon after, the kid runs into a man named Toadvine who, following a failed attempt to kill one another, teams with him to kill another man in a hotel before burning it down. Later, the kid is recruited by a party of U.S. Army irregulars led by Captain White. The captain argues that the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...

was a betrayal of the American soldiers who lost their lives fighting in the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

and sees his expedition as justification to liberate the state of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

. After several days of traveling and losing several soldiers to sickness, White's group is overwhelmed by a

Comanche The Comanche (), or Nʉmʉnʉʉ (, 'the people'), are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe from the Great Plains, Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the List of federally recognized tri ...

Indian war party with few surviving. The kid is captured and jailed by the Mexican Army, but is set free when Toadvine and several others prisoners convince the authorities that they will become scalp hunters for the Governor of Chihuahua City. They eventually join John Joel Glanton and his scalp hunter gang, along with the reemergence of Judge Holden. During their travels, the gang come across a family of fortune tellers who make predictions about a few members of the gang, including Glanton's tarot card revealing a fate of a wheelless cart traversing a dark river, which greatly infuriates him. Additionally, the kid learns from an ex-priest named Tobin about the Judge's proficiency in all manners of knowledge and how all members of the gang claim to have met the Judge at some point before joining. Re-accounting past events, Tobin speaks on how the gang first encountered Holden while fleeing from a pack of Apache Indians without having any

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

to fire their weapons. They find Holden sitting on a solitary boulder, where he is seemingly waiting for and expecting the gang, and they agree to follow his leadership. He leads them to a volcano where he instructs them on how to manufacture black powder using the volcano's resources to successfully fend off the outnumbering Apaches. The gang returns from their travels across the southern United States and northern Mexico and offer the scalps of the slaughtered natives for payment. After a shootout erupts in a cantina during a passing funeral procession, Glanton realizes that no one can differentiate between a Mexican and native scalp, and the gang begins destroying villages and scalping their inhabitants at will. This leads to a skirmish with Mexican soldiers and a bounty being placed on Glanton's head, resulting in the gang fleeing west. After another engagement with a cavalry division led by General Elias, the gang draw lots on who will execute the wounded gang members who cannot continue on, including a man named Shelby. Instead of killing him, the kid spares his life by hiding him away from others who may come by. Despite nearly being killed while escaping an ambush in the mountains, the kid willingly reunites with the remaining members and crosses into the

Mexican Cession The Mexican Cession () is the region in the modern-day Western United States that Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United S ...

where they set up operations at a ferry on the Colorado River. At first, the Yuma Indians assist the gang wrest control of the ferry from its owners, but Glanton betrays and slaughters the Yumas and the passengers so they can plunder the ferry and frame the Indians for the attack. In a second wave, the Yumas attack and kill almost all of the gang, including Glanton, with the kid and Toadvine fleeing west where they encounter Tobin and Judge Holden at a watering hole. The Judge buys Toadvine's hat and offers a vast sum of gold for the kid's only pistol. Tobin urges the kid to shoot Holden while he is unarmed, but the kid refuses, and they continue traveling westward. They pass by another gang member named David Brown, who is riding east after escaping imprisonment in San Diego, and tell him of the massacre. Later, while drinking at a creek, the kid is shot at by the Judge, who has acquired Brown's rifle and is hunting them across the desert. Tobin survives being shot through the neck and the pair hide in a pile of bones as the Judge passes by without seeing them. They kill the Judge's horses to slow his pursuit. After being rescued by a party of Diegueno Indians, the kid and Tobin eventually reach

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

where the kid is separated from Tobin and imprisoned. Holden visits the kid in jail, and informs him that he has told the jailers "the truth": the kid was not only responsible for the attack at the river, but that it was his merciful nature that caused the gang as a whole to falter in its pursuit for violence and war — concepts which the Judge deems as holy. Later, the authorities release the kid on

recognizance In some common law nations, a recognizance is a conditional pledge of money undertaken by a person before a court which, if the person defaults, the person or their sureties will forfeit that sum. It is an obligation of record, entered into before ...

and he seeks a doctor to treat his wounded leg. Under the effects of ether during the surgery, he hallucinates a visit from Holden along with a man who forges coins in his presence, one in which "the night does not end". After recovering, the kid makes his way to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, searching unsuccessfully for Tobin, but comes across the hanging of Toadvine and Brown. In the years following, the kid wanders nomadically throughout the region, working at various trades, owning a few meager possessions such as a Bible (which he is unable to read) and witnessing the San Francisco fires of 1851 and

1863 Events January * January 1 – Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the third year of the American Civil War, making the abolition of slavery in the Confederate States of America an official war goal. The signing ...

. When he is twenty-eight years old, the kid comes across a pilgrimage of

flagellant Flagellants are practitioners of a form of mortification of the flesh by whipping their skin with various instruments of penance. Many Christian confraternities of penitents have flagellants, who beat themselves, both in the privacy of their dwel ...

s making its way through the mountains; the next day, he finds their bodies hacked to pieces in the rocks. Nearby, he finds an old woman and begs her to come with him to safety, but she turns out to be a dried corpse. In 1878, the kid, now referred to as "the man," travels through northern Texas towards Fort Griffin. Along the way, he encounters an old buffalo hunter who tells him of the vast bison herds that once roamed the country. He also meets a group of young bone-pickers led by a boy named Elrod who, after being confrontational towards the man, returns to the man's camp at night to kill him. Anticipating this, the man shoots Elrod instead. At dawn, the other boys come to collect their companion's body and rifle before departing. Upon arriving in Fort Griffin that evening, the man enters a saloon and meets Judge Holden, who seems not to have aged in the intervening years. Holden calls the man "the last of the true", and the pair talk about "the dance" as it pertains to war and fate. The man dismisses the Judge's arguments before leaving to hire a prostitute. Afterwards, he goes outside to relieve himself during another meteor shower and is surprised by the Judge in an outhouse; Holden envelops him in an embrace before shutting the door behind him. Sometime later, two men go to use the same outhouse and, upon opening the door, gaze in horror at what they find inside. Meanwhile, in the saloon, Judge Holden dances and plays the fiddle in the midst of the revelers, all the while proclaiming that he will never die. In the epilogue, a man is making lines of holes across the plains with a steel implement. As he sparks a fire in each hole, an assortment of wanderers trail behind him.

Characters

Major characters

*The kid: The novel's anti-heroic protagonist or pseudo-protagonist, the kid is an illiterate Tennessean whose mother died in

childbirth Childbirth, also known as labour, parturition and delivery, is the completion of pregnancy, where one or more Fetus, fetuses exits the Womb, internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section and becomes a newborn to ...

. At 14, he flees from his father to Texas. He is said to have a disposition for violence and is involved in vicious actions throughout. He takes up inherently violent professions, specifically being recruited by violent criminals including Captain White, and later by Glanton and his gang, thereby securing release from a prison in Chihuahua, Mexico. The kid takes part in many of the Glanton gang's scalp-hunting rampages, but gradually displays a moral fiber that ultimately puts him at odds with the Judge. "The kid" is later as an adult referred to as "the man". * Judge Holden, or "the Judge": A huge, pale and hairless man who may or may not be supernatural. He is a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

and

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

and a keen examiner and recorder of the natural world. He is extremely violent and deviant. He is said to have accompanied Glanton's gang since they found him sitting alone on a rock in the middle of the desert and he saved them from pursuing Apaches. It is hinted that he and Glanton have some manner of pact. He gradually becomes the antagonist to the kid after the dissolution of Glanton's gang, occasionally having brief reunions with the kid. Unlike the rest of the gang, Holden is socially refined and remarkably well educated; however, he perceives the world as ultimately violent,

fatalistic Fatalism is a belief and philosophical doctrine which considers the entire universe as a deterministic system and stresses the subjugation of all events, actions, and behaviors to fate or destiny, which is commonly associated with the cons ...

, and liable to an endless cycle of bloody conquest, with

human nature Human nature comprises the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of Thought, thinking, feeling, and agency (philosophy), acting—that humans are said to have nature (philosophy), naturally. The term is often used to denote ...

and autonomy defined by the will to violence. * John Joel Glanton, or simply "Glanton": The American leader, or "captain", of a gang of scalphunters who murder Indians and Mexican civilians and military alike. His history and appearance are not clarified except that he is physically small with black hair and has a wife and child in Texas. He is a clever strategist. His last major action is to take control of a profitable Colorado River ferry, which ultimately leads to an ambush by Yuma Indians in which he is killed. * Louis Toadvine, or simply "Toadvine": A seasoned outlaw with whom the kid brawls and then burns down a hotel. Toadvine has no ears and his forehead is branded with the letters H and T (horse thief) and F (felon). He reappears unexpectedly as a cellmate of the kid in the Chihuahua prison. From here he mendaciously negotiates the release of himself and the kid and one other inmate into Glanton's gang. Toadvine is not as depraved as some of the gang, questioning the killing of innocents, but is nonetheless a violent criminal. He is hanged in Los Angeles alongside David Brown. * Ben Tobin, "the priest", or "the ex-priest": A member of the gang and formerly a

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience. Religion Buddhism ...

of the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

. Tobin remains deeply religious. He feels an apparently friend-like bond with the kid and abhors the Judge and his philosophy. He and the Judge gradually become great spiritual enemies. He survives the Yuma massacre of Glanton's gang but is shot in the neck by the Judge. He is last seen after he arrives in San Diego with the kid and goes off on his own to look for a doctor.

Other recurring characters

* Captain White, or "the captain": An American Veteran soldier and filibuster who believes that Mexico is a lawless nation destined to be conquered by the United States. Captain White leads a patchwork company of militants into Mexico along with the recently recruited "Kid". After weeks of travel through the harsh Mexican desert, the company is ambushed by a Comanche war party. Captain White makes his escape with a few "officers" but is ultimately caught, beheaded, and subsequently has his head "pickled". * Bathcat, or "the vandiemenlander": Born in Wales, Bathcat went to

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...

to hunt Aborigines. He has three fingers on his right hand. Aside from a necklace of ears, his most notable trait is a number tattooed on the inside of his forearm, suggesting that he may have been sent to the colony as a convict. He is killed by Native Americans during their travels through

Pimería Alta The ''Pimería Alta'' (translated to 'Upper Pima Land'/'Land of the Upper Pima' in English) was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa, Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today south ...

; a fate that was foretold during his introduction. * David Brown, or simply "Davy" or "Brown": A member of the gang who wears a necklace of human ears - likely taken from Bathcat's corpse. He is arrested in San Diego and Glanton seems especially concerned to see him released. He brings about his own release but does not return to the gang before the Yuma massacre. He is hanged with Toadvine in Los Angeles. * James Robert Bell, or "the idiot": A mentally challenged man who becomes affiliated with the Glanton gang after his brother, Cloyce joins. Before the brothers joined, Cloyce would keep the idiot in a cage so people could pay money to see him. He's also regularly shown chewing on his own feces. The Judge takes a liking to the idiot, as he can be easy to manipulate. The Judge would later have the idiot chained like a dog and make him hold his weapons. The Judge later uses the idiot to try to kill both the kid and Tobin. By the end of the novel, the Judge is not seen with the idiot, leaving his fate like many in the novel, unknown. * John Jackson: "John Jackson" is a name shared by two men in Glanton's gangone black and one whitewho detest one another and whose tensions frequently rise when in each other's presence. After trying to drive the black Jackson away from a campfire with a threat of violence, "White Jackson" is decapitated. "Black Jackson" assumes an integral role in the gang. While still referred to by numerous slurs, Jackson is nonetheless treated as part of a "body" that cannot have any part killed or violated, as Judge Holden goes to great lengths to rescue him after a confrontation on a mountain pass.

Themes

Violence

A major theme is the warlike nature of man. Critic

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

praised ''Blood Meridian'' as one of the best 20th century American novels, "worthy of

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...

's ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...

''," but admitted that his "first two attempts to read through ''Blood Meridian'' failed, because eflinched from the overwhelming carnage". Caryn James of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' argued that the novel's violence was a "slap in the face" to modern readers cut off from brutality. Terrence Morgan thought the effect of the violence initially shocking but then waned until the reader was desensitized. Billy J. Stratton of '' Arizona Quarterly'' contends that the brutality is the primary mechanism through which McCarthy challenges the "oppositional structure" of the conventional narrative of the Old West; " aders encounter characters that are often depicted as more animal than human in their behaviors, participating in a ruthless struggle for fortune and power. It is the absence of a recognizable heroic character along with the negation of the

Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Euro ...

oppositions that McCarthy's deployment of animal imagery is meant to illuminate." James D. Lilley argues that many critics struggle with the fact that McCarthy does not use violence for "jury-rigged, symbolic plot resolutions ... In McCarthy's work, violence tends to be just that; it is not a sign or symbol of something else." In her aforementioned review, Caryn James noted that McCarthy depicts characters of all backgrounds as evil, in contrast to contemporary "revisionist theories that make white men the villains and Indians the victims."

Epigraphs

Three epigraphs open the book: quotations from French writer

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, m ...

, from German Christian mystic

Jakob Böhme Jakob Böhme (; ; 24 April 1575 – 17 November 1624) was a German philosopher, Christian mysticism, Christian mystic, and Lutheran Protestant Theology, theologian. He was considered an original thinker by many of his contemporaries within the L ...

, and a 1982 news clipping from the ''

Yuma Sun The ''Yuma Sun'' is a newspaper in Yuma, Arizona, United States. History Though not founded until 1896, the Yuma Sun can trace its history back to the ''Arizona Sentinel'', the first newspaper in what is now the Yuma area. The Yuma Sun wou ...

'' reporting the claim of members of an

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

n archeological excavation that a fossilized skull three hundred millennia old seemed to have been scalped. Regarding the meaning of the epigraphs, David H. Evans writes that

Ending

The narrative closes with ambiguity pertaining to the final state of the kid, or the man. Since the book portrays violence in explicit detail, this allusive portrayal has caused comment. Given Judge Holden's history and other details in the text, he presumably rapes the man before killing him. Alternatively, perhaps the point is that readers can never know.

Religion

Hell

David Vann argues that the setting of the American southwest which the Gang traverses is representative of hell. Vann claims that the Judge's kicking of a head is an allusion to

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

's similar action in the ''Inferno''.

Gnosticism

The second of the three epigraphs which introduce the novel, taken from the Christian theosophist

, has incited varied discussion. The quote from Boehme is: No specific conclusions have been reached about its interpretation nor relevance to the novel. Critics agree that there are

Gnostic Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...

elements in ''Blood Meridian'', but they disagree on the precise meaning and implication of those elements. Leo Daugherty argues that "Gnostic thought is central to Cormac McCarthy's ''Blood Meridian''", (Daugherty, 122) specifically the

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

- Manichean branch of Gnosticism. He describes the novel as a "rare coupling of Gnostic 'ideology' with the 'affect' of Hellenic tragedy by means of depicting how power works in the making and erasing of culture, and of what the human condition amounts to when a person opposes that power and thence gets introduced to

fate Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predeterminism, predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words wiktionary ...

." Daugherty sees Holden as an

archon ''Archon'' (, plural: , ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem , meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same ...

and the kid as a "failed ''

pneuma ''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breathing, breath", and in a religious context for "spirit (animating force), spirit". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in rega ...

''." He says that the kid feels a "spark of the alien divine." Daugherty further contends that the violence of the novel can best be understood through a Gnostic lens. "

Evil Evil, as a concept, is usually defined as profoundly immoral behavior, and it is related to acts that cause unnecessary pain and suffering to others. Evil is commonly seen as the opposite, or sometimes absence, of good. It can be an extreme ...

" as defined by the Gnostics was a far larger, more pervasive presence in human life than the rather tame and "domesticated"

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

of Christianity. As Daugherty writes, "For nostics evil was simply everything that ''is'', with the exception of bits of spirit imprisoned here. And what they saw is what we see in the world of ''Blood Meridian''." However, Barcley Owens argues that while there are undoubtedly Gnostic qualities to the novel, Daugherty's arguments are "ultimately unsuccessful," because Daugherty fails to adequately address the pervasive violence and because he overstates the kid's goodness.

Theodicy

Douglas Canfield asserts that

theodicy In the philosophy of religion, a theodicy (; meaning 'vindication of God', from Ancient Greek θεός ''theos'', "god" and δίκη ''dikē'', "justice") is an argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil that arises when all powe ...

is the central theme of ''Blood Meridian''. James Wood took a similar position, recognizing as a recurrent theme in the novel the issue of the general justification of metaphysical goodness in the presence of evil. Chris Dacus expressed his preference for discussing the theme of theodicy in its eschatological terms in comparison to the theological scene of the last judgmen

This preference for reading theodicy as an eschatological theme was further affirmed by Harold Bloom in his recurrent phrase of referring to the novel as "The Authentic Apocalyptic Novel."

Writing

McCarthy began writing ''Blood Meridian'' in the mid-1970s.Shannon, Noah (2012-10-05). "Cormac McCarthy Cuts to the Bone". ''Slate Book Review'', 5 October 2012. In a letter sent around 1979 he said that he had not touched ''Blood Meridian'' in six months out of frustration. Nonetheless, significant parts of the final book were written in one go, "including the astonishing 'legion of horribles' passage". McCarthy worked on the novel while living on the money he received from his MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellows grant in 1981. It was his first attempt at a western and his first novel set in the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

, a change from the

Appalachia Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...

n settings of his earlier work. In 1974, McCarthy moved from his native Tennessee to

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

, to immerse himself in the culture and geography of the American Southwest. He taught himself

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, which many of the characters of ''Blood Meridian'' speak. McCarthy conducted considerable research to write the book. Critics have repeatedly demonstrated that even brief and seemingly inconsequential passages of ''Blood Meridian'' rely on historical evidence. The book has been described as "as close to history as novels generally get".Mitchell, L. C. (2015) ‘A Book "Made Out of Books": The Humanizing Violence of Style in "Blood Meridian"’, Texas studies in literature and language, 57(3), pp. 259–281. doi: 10.7560/TSLL57301. The Glanton gang segments are based on

Samuel Chamberlain Samuel Emery Chamberlain (November 27, 1829 – November 10, 1908) was an American soldier, painter, and author who traveled throughout the American Southwest and Mexico during the mid-19th century. Early life Chamberlain was born in Center H ...

's account of the group in his memoir ''My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue''. Chamberlain rode with John Joel Glanton and his company between 1849 and 1850. Judge Holden is described in Chamberlain's account but is otherwise unknown. Chamberlain writes: McCarthy's Judge was added to his manuscript in the late 1970s, a "grotesque patchwork of up-river Kurtz and Milton's

" and Chamberlain's account. McCarthy physically retraced the Glanton Gang's path through Mexico multiple times, and noted topography and fauna. He studied such topics as homemade gunpowder to accurately depict the Judge's creation from volcanic rock.

Style

McCarthy's writing style involves many unusual or archaic words, dialogue in Spanish, no quotation marks for dialogue, and no apostrophes to signal most contractions. McCarthy told

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American television presenter, talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show' ...

in an interview that he preferred "simple declarative sentences" and that he used capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but never semicolons. He believed there was no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks". ''The New York Times'' described McCarthy's prose in ''Blood Meridian'' as " Faulknerian". Describing events of extreme violence, McCarthy's prose is sparse yet expansive, with an often

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

quality and frequent religious references.

Reception and reevaluation

''Blood Meridian'' initially received little recognition, but has since been recognized as a masterpiece and one of the greatest works of American literature. Some have called it the

. American literary critic Harold Bloom praised ''Blood Meridian'' as one of the 20th century's finest novels. Aleksandar Hemon has called it "possibly the greatest American novel of the past 25 years".

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine ...

named it one of the five most underappreciated American novels since 1960 and " obably the most horrifying book of this 0thcentury, at least nfiction." ''Time'' magazine included ''Blood Meridian'' in its "Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". In 2010 ''The New York Times'' conducted a poll of writers and critics regarding the most important works in American fiction from the previous 25 years, and ''Blood Meridian'' was a runner-up.

Literary significance

There has been no consensus in the interpretation of the novel. Americanist Dana Phillips said that the work "seems designed to elude interpretation". One scholar has described ''Blood Meridian'' as: Nonetheless, academics and critics have suggested that ''Blood Meridian'' is

nihilistic Nihilism () encompasses various views that reject certain aspects of existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, and that knowledge is impossible. Thes ...

or strongly

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

, a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of the western genre or a savage indictment of

Manifest Destiny Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American pioneer, American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''m ...

called it "the ultimate western". J. Douglas Canfield described it as "a

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

Bildungsroman In literary criticism, a bildungsroman () is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age). The term comes from the German words ('formation' or 'edu ...

'' in which we are denied access to the protagonist's consciousness almost entirely". Richard Selzer declared that McCarthy "is a geniusalso probably somewhat insane." Critic Steven Shaviro wrote:

Attempted film adaptations

Since the novel's release many have noted its cinematic potential. ''The New York Times'' 1985 review noted that the novel depicted "scenes that might have come off a movie screen". There have been attempts to create a motion picture adaptation of ''Blood Meridian'', but all have failed during the development or

pre-production Pre-production is the process of planning some of the elements involved in a film, television show, play, video game, or other performance, as distinct from production and post-production. Pre-production ends when the planning ends and the co ...

stages. A common perception is that the story is " unfilmable" due to its unrelenting violence and dark tone. In an interview with ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' in 2009 McCarthy denied this notion, with his perspective being that it would be "very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary." Screenwriter Steve Tesich first adapted ''Blood Meridian'' into a screenplay in 1995. In the late 1990s,

Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Tommy Lee Jones, various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Scre ...

acquired the film adaptation rights to the story and subsequently rewrote Tesich's screenplay with the idea of directing and playing a role in it. The production could not move forward due to film studios avoiding the project's overall violence. Following the end of production for '' Kingdom of Heaven'' in 2004, screenwriter

William Monahan William J. Monahan (born November 3, 1960) is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay ''The Departed'' (2006), an adaptation of Andrew Lau's 2002 gangster film ''Infernal Affairs'', earned him a Writers Guild of Am ...

and director

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly co ...

entered discussions with producer Scott Rudin for adapting ''Blood Meridian'' with

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

financing. In a 2008 interview with '' Eclipse Magazine'' Scott confirmed that the screenplay had been written, but that the extensive violence was proving to be a challenge for film standards. This later led to Scott and Monahan leaving the project, resulting in another abandoned adaptation. By early 2011,

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has starred in numerous films, including Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002 film series), ''Spider-Man'' trilogy (2002–2007), ''Milk (2008 American film), Milk'' (200 ...

was considering adapting ''Blood Meridian'', along with a number of other

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

and Cormac McCarthy novels. After being persuaded by

Andrew Dominik Andrew Dominik (born 7 October 1967) is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He has directed the crime film '' Chopper'' (2000), the Western drama film '' The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'' (2007), the neo-n ...

to adapt the novel, Franco shot 25 minutes of test footage starring

Scott Glenn Theodore Scott Glenn (born January 26 between 1938 and 1942) is an American actor. His roles have included Bill Lester in '' She Came to the Valley'' (1979), Pfc Glenn Kelly in ''Nashville'' (1975), Wes Hightower in '' Urban Cowboy'' (1980), as ...

Mark Pellegrino Mark Ross Pellegrino (born April 9, 1965) is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for his work as Lucifer in ''Supernatural'', Paul Bennett in '' Dexter'', Jacob in '' Lost'', James Bishop in '' Being Human'', Clayton H ...

, Luke Perry, and

Dave Franco David John Franco (born June 12, 1985) is an American actor and filmmaker. He began his career with small roles in films such as '' Superbad'' (2007) and '' Charlie St. Cloud'' (2010). Following a starring role in the final season of the comed ...

. For undisclosed reasons, Rudin denied further production of the film. On May 5, 2016, '' Variety'' revealed that Franco was negotiating with Rudin to write and direct an adaptation to be brought to the Marché du Film, starring

Russell Crowe Russell Ira Crowe (born 7 April 1964) is an actor and film director. Russell Crowe filmography, His work on screen has earned him List of awards and nominations received by Russell Crowe, various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Gold ...

Tye Sheridan Tye Kayle Sheridan (born November 11, 1996) is an American actor. He made his feature film debut in Terrence Malick's experimental drama film ''The Tree of Life (film), The Tree of Life'' (2011) and had his first leading role in Jeff Nichols's ...

, and Vincent D'Onofrio. However, it was reported later that day that the project dissolved due to issues with the film rights. In 2023, '' Deadline'' reported that New Regency is adapting ''Blood Meridian'' as a feature film. John Hillcoat, who previously directed an adaptation of McCarthy's novel '' The Road'', is set to direct. Alongside his son John Francis, McCarthy was set to serve as an executive producer on the film; he will retain a posthumous credit following his death on June 13, 2023. John Logan was later announced to be adapting the story. In a 2024 interview, Hillcoat said he and McCarthy spent extended time discussing the film, which the author once volunteered to write and envisioned as a "Faustian tale, the journey of the Judge trying to win the soul of the kid, and consume everything in his path." McCarthy had rejected a miniseries proposal, finding television lacks a "kind of grandeur about it, an element of scale."

References

Bibliography

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External links

James, C., Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, ''The New York Times'', Apr 1985

reviewed by Ted Gioia
The New Canon

NPR interview with Ben Nichols about his record ''The Last Pale Light in the West'', inspired by ''Blood Meridian''
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