Research Paper on Blood Meridian free essay sample

In Cormac McCarthy’s western American classic,  Blood Meridian, the author uses violence to exemplify the brutality of men and how inhumane westerners in this period behaved. Throughout the novel,  Blood Meridian, members of the Glanton Gang kill Indians and take their scalps in exchange for money from the Mexican government which shows how corrupt not only the people are, but even the government during this time period. â€Å"Adopted from an actual episode dating from the late 1840’s, when the Mexican government paid American mercenaries episodes of slaughter and mayhem† (Parini 180). This proves to readers that this book is not completely fiction and gives the reader an idea of what is happening less than two hundred years ago. The Glanton Gang relentlessly kills people inlcluding the elderly and children alike. â€Å"He took the skinning knife from his belt and stepped where the old woman lay and took up her hair and passed the blade of the knife about her skull and ripped away the scalp† (98). This is a perfect example of how McCarthy exerts explicit detail to show how heartlessly the Glanton Gang killed Indians. Glanton abruptly shot the woman in the back of the head before scalping her. An innocent woman being slaughtered without reason shows how humans will do anything to satisfy their limitless thirst for wealth. Throughout the entire book there are endless deaths, but not all are of which are Indians which shows another example of how crazed and inhumane westerners acted in this period. Towards the end of  Blood Meridian, there is a dancing bear on stage in a saloon that gets shot without reason. â€Å"He was holding his chest and a thin foam of blood swung from his jaw and he began to totter and to cry like a child and he took a few steps, dancing, and crashed to the boards (326). The way McCarthy described the bear’s death is almost as if it were human, perhaps even a child. During this time frame in the West, the people acted ferocious and barbaric; not only towards others, but towards the wildlife as well. â€Å"The unnatural acts here are manynature as captive, forced to dance on a stage, crying like a child, its death as the shedding of blood without meaning or significance† (Spurgeon 1). It is slightly understandable that the people here are corrupt by killing each other for their own benefits, but to harm animals which have done nothing wrong is considered even more shallow. The death of the bear shows a slaughter of innocence and how inhumane the westerners were for killing an innocent bear. The nameless protagonist of  Blood Meridian, the Kid, travels with a cult and the reader learns how he changes from an innocent boy to a ruthless man through his experiences and interactions with the West and the people in it. At the end of the book, when the Kid is fully grown, he is killed by Judge Holden. The author, oddly enough, does not describe the Kid’s death in great detail as McCarthy does to others. Although it was not blatantly stated, the Kid was not only killed but raped as well. â€Å"He was naked and he rose up smiling and gathered him in his arms against his immense and terrible flesh and shot the wooden bar latch home behind him† (333). The only reason for the Judge to be naked after killing the Kid is if he raped the Kid. Throughout the novel, there are many hints that lead towards the fact that Holden molests children as well. â€Å"Shortly before the killing, Holden remarks that the Kid was a traitor to Glanton’s band and its principles in having show clemency for the heathen† (Sepich 1). The Judge had a vendetta with the Kid because he was the only one in the gang who showed compassion towards others. Other members of the gang were only there to obtain wealth, while the Kid simply did not have anywhere else to be. For being compassionate, the Judge kills the Kid thus illustrating how the westerners in this period behaved very uncivilized and only acted to benefit themselves. Blood Meridian  mainly follows a group of bandits known as the Glanton Gang and their adventure to kill Indians and take their scalps to sell for money which shows a loss of innocence since anyone part of such degrading cult is evl as well. The Mexican government pays members of this cult for killing which further proves the corruption in the west. â€Å"They’re to pay him a hundred dollars a head for scalps and a thousand for Gomez’s head (79). People of this time period did not have many morals and were genuinely dehumanized. Nearly all members of the Glanton Gang can be considered dehumanized since they killed for money. â€Å"At the center of the action is the Judge, who controls his hang of soldiers through fear, wit, and his innate mastery of human nature† (Baird 971). Holden uses fear to force the other members of the Gang to do as he pleases. All members of the Gang know each other’s backgrounds, but none know anything about the Judge. Due to his mysterious nature, other members of the gang are petrified of Holden because they do not know what he is capable of. Anyone who joins a bloodthirsty cult such as the Glanton Gang exhibits a loss of innocence and dehumanization due to the fact that they kill for wealth. Although the Kid is killed by Holden at the end of the novel, there were three instances where he was told to take down the Judge, but he refused thus his inability to kill the Judge being his downfall. Judge Holden is the villain of this novel by manipulating everyone, killing the Kid for being compassionate, and molesting children. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be† (248). By having this mindset, the Judge thinks that war is inevitable for man. â€Å" the Judge seems to feel that the power to inflict death imparts a godlike sense of superiority over it. A great killer must love to kill† (Parini 182). The Judge believes that he is above all else and that he has the right to take away lives solely for his entertainment. Judge Holden is completely consumed with violence and evil since he believes that humans were made for solely for war. Judge Holden represents the true embodiment for evil in  Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian follows the Kid from when he was seventeen until he dies nearly thirty years later, so the reader begins to grow feelings for the Kid as they see him grow up and change from an innocent, lost boy into a strong, compassionate man. At the start of the novel, the author describes the Kid as he is sitting outside alone. â€Å"See the Child. He is pale and thing, he wears a thing and ragged linen shirt. He strokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves† (3). In the beginning, the Kid was just a lost boy with no where to go nor he did not know right from wrong. The Kid represents innocence and purity because he did not understand how evil the world could be; he sat outside with a fire trying to simply survive on his own. After the Kid joined the Glanton Gang, he started to develop malevolent characteristics that changed him to become the killer he died as. Although e joined the gang, he was able to retain some of his innocence and compassion because he did not let Judge Holden control him as he did to other members in the gang. â€Å" young children should be put into pits with wild dogs, forced to fight like lions.. Only those with the most perfect wills would survive such tests.. the Kid faces several such tests through the narrative and fails them.. He alone aids in removing an arrow from a gang member’s leg when no one else would† (Spurgeon 1). The Kid shows compassion towards other members of the gang, as if they were his family. If the Kid had been raised by a family then he would have never joined the gang. The Kid’s lack of a family is his down which causes him to lose his innocence and good will. McCarthy never tells the reader what the characters are thinking or how they feel, instead he uses the landscape to convey the tone of each scene. Most of the book takes places in the desert which is a very harsh landscape to travel through. â€Å" they crossed the malpais afoot, leading the horses upon a lakebed of lava all cracked and reddish black like a pan of died blood They crossed a cinderland of caked slurry and volcanic ash imponderable as the burned-out floor of hell†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (251). The author uses imagery to convey the desert landscape as hell. â€Å"Blood Meridian is the Inferno of our time, though the architecture has changed. Hell here is an open desert landscape, an endless journey past demonic shapes and beings living and dead† (Vann 1). The hellish desert is also a symbol for death because all of the Indian ambushes and Indian scalping occurs in the desert. Hell is described as a demonic, evil place where nothing good can come out of. In Blood Meridian, the deserts are used to convey death in the novel in comparison to Hell which exemplifies the animalistic behaviors of the men in this time period. Churches are supposed to be places for people to have faith and feel hopeful, so a broken down church would convey a loss of hope and happiness. â€Å"He woke up in the nave of the ruinous church, blinking up at the vaulted ceiling and the tall swagged walls with their faded frescos. The floor of the church was deep in guano and the droppings of cattle and sheep† (26). McCarthy tends to depict scenes in very dark, demonic ways to portray how the characters are feeling and how they will behave. â€Å" but the demons in Blood Meridian inhabit a shadow world that speaks even to an atheist, an â€Å"absolute night† that McCarthy summons from after he has established the landscape whose true geology was not stone but fear† (Vann 1). All of the major characters in the novel have problems such as Judge Holden loving to kill and causing mischief for others. The hellish scenes that McCarthy creates help convey the negative feelings the character feel towards each other. Although McCarthy focuses on portraying the negative aspects of the novel through the landscape, there are also partially positive aspects. Although there is constant death and violence in every corner, the westerners of this period have havens where they can act carefree and not have to worry about anything, the saloon. Here many people drink, dance, and simply act wild while outside they have to be protective and cautious of who they interact with and trust. Many among the dancers were staggering drunk through the room and some had rid themselves of shirts and jackets and stood bare-chested and sweating even though the room was cold enough to cloud their breaths† (334). Although the westerners are extremely happy and content in the saloon’s, all of their feelings are just temporary. Alcohol lets them escape this world’s harsh, difficult challenges an d act carefree, but in the end they will have to return to the dark, dehumanized world in which they live in. In the bleak, morally bereft landscape of the borderlands, the Kid gradually discovers that there are no good or bad causes, only the unending savagery of both the Native Americans and their would-be conquerors† (Baird 970). The Kid learns that no matter what you do, in the end there will only be war and violence. By thinking this he is giving into what the Judge thought, that â€Å"before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner† (248). In McCarthy’s classic Blood Meridian, the author shows readers how inhumane and violent the westerners in this period behaved. McCarthy describes the terrifying life of westerners through the barren landscape which helps convey the savagery of the society within it. Killing Indians for profit, molesting children, and killing innocent animals are all different forms of dehumanized corruption that occur in this novel. Always having to keep your back to a corner and having no one to trust is how westerners in this period lived. Blood Meridian reminds readers how challenging life was less than two hundred years ago and shows them how barbaric the people of that time behaved.