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Published: 2011-06-07 11:21:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 473; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 12
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it's full shade. I almost destroyed my eyes with this one. Perhaps it's the last full shade I made.
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^^ *cheers* Also my paper is halfway through ^^. Nearly there. "God" and cycles of destruction in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
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was this the same requirement last month? I bet it's difficult to put together.
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It's challenging. I'll probably post it to scraps when it's all settled for those who are interested.
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Because it's a form of writing most people don't like. And it'll probably be formatted a bit roughly. Just there for those curious how I write academically.
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I want to read that paper. *eager.
*waits
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^_^ Okay. I'll probably post them both tomorrow once the last one is sent in.
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^_^ They're just typical essays but I hope you enjoy them.
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I posted them ^^. Feel free to check them out.
[link] - The James Joyce one.
[link] - The Cormac McCarthy/Blood Meridian one.
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has checked them out.
I like how you did the first post but the second one seems a lot more orderly and consistent with its flow of thought. perhaps stress?
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Stress and the fact I made the other one with the benefit of a very orderly outline. My other...well I could post my prospectus guiding me. But it's not very well done.
Prospectus for Blood Meridian
For my final paper in English 585, I would like to examine McCarthy’s implication of violence, particularly by men, leading to the breakdown of order by focusing on religious symbols. Throughout the novel, there are images which use religious symbolism. Among these are ones like the dead baby bush which can tie into the symbol of the Burning Bush in the Bible. Instead, this bush is a horrifying symbol of inhumanity, instead of hope. In my research, it is clear that McCarthy intends these kinds of symbols and allusions to be drawn. Also, the churches, possible symbols of order, are where soldiers take shooting practice at the saints. There are other religious, Christian symbols, such as communal blood.
I’ve been grappling with a lot of ideas leading up into this. The problem is that in my research there is not a lot of the kind of research I’m looking for. I’m curious about the reasons for this violence. Why are there these violent images particularly in places where there are also religious symbols? Does it represent a breakdown of the social order? In one particular article I looked at, it referenced the idea of the cowboy codes of honor like religious codes and how the work subverts these.
I believe I’ll start my paper by looking at what is considered sacred and representative of “god” or “godliness” in the novel and where sacred nature is broken and “god” shown. In so far as the novel, there is the natural world and there is the world of man. With Judge Holden, a man of scientific lust, the natural world should be subservient to man. Control of the sacred is focused on male characters with female ones absent, destroyed, or defiled. In symbols of the west in the pastoral tradition, the land is treated in a feminine sense and as sacred in Native American folklore. I’ll also need to explore what is the religious/god-like thread which is woven through the narrative. Is it, as some have claimed, specifically in a one tradition, such as Gnostic, Christian, or Native American? I postulate that it can include all “gods” in cycles for dominance which end in conflict and destruction.
I will need to show that these religious aspects and their connection to violence. Particularly, Judge Holden will integral because he represented the first destruction of religious order in that he brings a mob against the reverend at the beginning of the novel. His destruction, interestingly enough, comes from words alone, usually the Biblical symbol of creation.
I will also explore the aspect of the natural world as sacred in Native American, particularly Yuman, traditions and how that is broken down. Holden in particular wants to quantify and control this world while exalting it. Holden is a proponent of science, as a new religion which is to profane the old ones through his words. Throughout the novel, there is the repetition of words of power over and over.
Power and control among men for their wants is at the center of the conquest of the West. It is interesting to note that the main characters of the narrative are not always given names and can often be cited by their role rather than their identity. It seems they are more symbolic, as if the novel is telling a mythic/biblical story rather than a realist one but in different tropes from one like the Illiad where you have a fraternity of men to a common purpose. There are just a group of men linked together by greed to get as much as they can out of the landscape as they can. Their “god” may be considered capitalism.
Their conversation is often tinged by what is wanted and violent with rare sympathy delayed or shown due to self-interest. This depicts a complete breakdown in the fraternity of men towards each other as you would see in a social group. Rather, they are a group of ravenous individuals.
I can see my problem with this paper is where to focus it. While a lot of my research talks about myth, there is not a lot written about broken human connections, so I would have to work out more of that on my own and perhaps tie it into the profaning of the sacred symbols. The breaking of brotherhood and the treatment of those lesser as a spiritual ideal.
Gnosticism would be an interesting area of study because of my previous study of it and how often it is cited in readings of the text. In that religious perspective, the natural world is a spiritual place but the physical control of it is represented in the figure of Judge Holden, who closer to that tradition’s figure of the Demiurge. In the same way, Holden is creative and impressive and mythic but still a shadow of the divine because the need for control over this world. Holden has also been compared to an Archon, but those figures in Gnosticism are, however, subservient figures of order.
At the same time, Holden seems to be a man. A religious reading would try to make him into some supernatural figure. More mythic monster than man but the more terrifying notion of the novel is that Holden is just a man. A very clever and terrible man and possessing so much of the darkest aspects of human nature. The consummate Man of the “god” made of man. He seems to represent the key breakdown responsible for the world of the novel. While he doesn’t make all the events happen on his own, he often seems to possess the darkly human spark in opposition to the divine spark. He represents the opposite of community formed by religion, tradition, continuity, and symbol. He is all for himself, representative of base human desire.
Ultimately, all these “god”-like figures in the novel go through a cycle of turbulence and destruction. The Kid has been connected with Yuman mythology with his birth revealed as being under the most amazing meteor show in history. This symbol, connected with divine fire, is highly meaningful in this religious tradition and a recurring motif in McCarthy’s writing. But the Kid ultimately falls into this destruction cycle with Holden victorious. However, the epilogue might portend that the cycle of destruction will continue onward.
Working Bibliography
Cant, John. “Blood Meridian.” Cormac McCarthy and the Myth of American Exceptionalism. New York: Routledge, 2008. 157-76. Print.
Douglas, Christopher. "The flawed design: American imperialism in N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian." Studies in Contemporary Fiction. Vol. 45.1 (Fall 2003): 3-24. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 31 May 2011.
Guilllemin, Georg. The Pastoral Vision of Cormac McCarthy. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Print.
McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. 1985. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.
Mitchell, Jason P. "Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and the (De)Mythologizing of the American West." Critique 41.3 (2000): 290-304. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 31 May 2011.
Mundik, Petra. “’Striking the Fire Out of the Rock”: Gnostic Theology in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian." South Central Review 26.3 (2009): 72-97. Project Muse. Web. 31 May 2011.
Peebles, Stacey. “Yuman Belief Systems and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language. Vol. 45.2 (Summer 2003): 231-44. Project Muse. Web. 31 May 2011.
Spurgeon, Sara L. Exploding the West: Myths of Empire on the Postmodern Frontier. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Print.
Wallace, Rick, ed. Myth, Legend, Dust: Critical Responses to Cormac McCarthy. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000. Print.
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It's a guide, right? This feels natural. *astonished
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*nods* ^^. I got a good grade on this. It's more a guide for my thought process.
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*claps
Then that's good - I mean great!
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