Blood Meridian Blog 10: A Video Representation

   This is a short video I made showing the scene early in the novel where Captain White's entire troop of soldiers is almost completely wiped out. It demonstrates the meaningless violence that occurs throughout the book. The video is the opening scene in the video game, "Darkest of Days" by Erin Sherman. I recorded the screen with my camera while playing through it. The music at the end is the theme to "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly" by Ennio Morricone. In no way shape or form do I own the components used in this video. All credits go to their respective owners. (BTW disregard the "Press right mouse to aim weapon" message)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3677053530467

Blood Meridian Blog 9: The Ending

              The ending of Blood Meridian is a very, very hotly debated topic throughout all literary audiences and groups. There are many ways to interpret the ending, none of the ways are really that tasteful and many seem to conflict with each other. Many different people have many different interpretations that they believe is correct. It can be quite confusing even when read in context. What appears to be the most common interpretation of the novel is that Holden kills the kid in a Fort Griffin, Texas outhouse. The Kid's death may not that significant however. Blood Meridian is a book full of brutality, depicting, in brutal and explicit detail, all manner of bloodshed, violence and brutality. For the ending to be left unclear leaves something of a vacuum for the reader: knowing the horrid crimes established in the past hundreds of pages, the kid's unstated fate might too awful to state. It may also be too harsh and brutal to even think about. The significance of the kid's fate is so shocking that many witnesses are speechless. Nowhere in the book has such a reaction happened to characters in the book which is another clue showing the individuality (not necessarily a good thing) of the kid's fate. 

                Another view brought up a lot is Patrick Shaw's which is that The Judge sexually violated The Kid. As Shaw writes, the novel had many times where The Judge demonstrated a capability to do this. According to Shaw's argument, The Judge's actions in the Fort Griffin outhouse is what he wanted decades earlier: to molest the kid, then perhaps kill off the only surviving member of Glanton's gang. This is however hotly debated as there has been much flaming of Shaw's interpretation. He is perfectly entitled to his own opinion. I however would prefer to believe the first option. Again, there has been much speculation on this topic. However there's no real way we can figure out and perhaps that's just what McCarthy intended, to write a ending to a unique novel that will never get figured out.

Blood Meridian Blog 8: A Similar Comparison

              Blood Meridian is a very unique book that is written in Cormac McCarthy's unique writing style with blunt, gory details and blatant language, no real hidden meanings. This combined with a host of other techniques make Blood Meridian a very interesting, (if not hard to get through) novel. The contents are hard to stomach and many of the details are hard to read simply because of McCarthy's blunt and brutally honest descriptions. This really gives it its sense of appeal (in a strange sense) and truly shows the uniqueness of the novel. However there is a similar book which is closely related to Blood Meridian. This book is another classic novel, Moby Dick. In Blood Meridian, the opening is with The Kid where we see how he begins his tale. He starts out as a constant character but eventually the story takes a turn with the introduction of The Judge. We then see The Kid fade back into space except for minor instances where he crops up again, but overall we can sometimes forget that he's there though we're actually seeing everything through his eyes. Moby Dick is much the same as Ishmael is introduced as the main character in the beginning giving us much information about him. The character even says, "Call me Ishmael." This simply yet effective statement adds mystery as we readers are left guessing about his mysterious past. Everything we see is through Ishmael's eyes such as the "savage", Queequeg. What we read is really Ishmael's interpretation of him. The book continues but then once the real major character arrives, Captain Ahab, Ishmael soon seems to fade back out of existence and we focus almost entirely on Captain Ahab and his undying obsession with finally capturing and killing the great white whale, Moby Dick. Captain Ahab is introduced as a interesting and even more mysterious character that we readers know little about. The book kind of explains a little about his past though not really enough to quench our thirst for knowledge. We don't know how Ishmael knows the daily schedule of Captain Ahab but neither do we complain since these observations show us more detailed information on Captain Ahab's mind which we are severely lacking. The Judge is much like this as once he is introduced, the main narrator, The Kid sort of sits on the sidelines and watches the Judge (Ahab) go about his business. There are startling similarities between the two books and two of the major characters.

Blood Meridian Blog 7: The Judge

               Another major, major character throughout the novel is an infamous character called, "The Judge." A particularly ruthless and very violent character, he strikes fear into the heart of his enemies and leaves a swath of destruction in his wake. He is first introduced to us in this novel in a scene that describes one of his traits. He bursts into a sermon/revival to inform the church goers that the Reverend who is holding this religious event is an impostor, a pervert and a criminal wanted in four states. He lists multiple charges, each of which progresses in seriousness until they are almost unbelievable. Everyone tries to get to the reverend to hang him. The kid and his friend escape and head to the bar. The bald headed Judge is already there, drinking a whiskey. The kid and his friend sit down at the bar and order drinks but the Judge pays for them. Later a multitude of men come in and ply the Judge with questions about how he got all this information about the reverend. He simply replies that "I never laid eyes on the man before today. Never even heard of him." He had just made up everything about the Reverend just because it would make for a funny scene. He was probably drunk at the time as well.

               Not only is his appearance imposing as he is a massively tall and bulky, he has a certain elegance that contrasts terribly with his motives and actions. He has many interests and talents that befit a noble, respectable man but completely don't match him as a person. He is brutally honest, almost completely though not in a way which we would normally interpret. He is honest in every-way but not honest at all at the same time. Confusing isn't it? He is only honest towards things that will benefit him in someway and that it messes with all other people. His blunt honesty is sort of refreshing at the beginning as he speaks his views freely and doesn't care what other people thing. However, we soon realize that his character is much more sinister and devious than we originally realized. He is a curious man which is interesting as he hangs out with a group of people who you wouldn't expect him to be related too in many ways. He looks at all Native American culture around him even as he kills and scalps them. However at least he tries to learn and understand them while his partners simply see them as a grisly source of income. He often sits at the campfire and tells tons of his stories, whether real or not, we do not know. He also pretty much controls the whole group with an unspoken consent. No one contests his claim. Even though Glanton is supposedly "the leader" we can see that its really the judge. His character is quite interesting as he enjoys the finer points of life such as eating, dancing, music, etc but is just as ready, in a blink of an eye to turn around and shoot someone. His contrasting, ironic demeanor makes him all the more brutal and evil.

Blood Meridian Blog 6: The Kid

              Our main protagonist throughout the novel is a character known only as "The Kid" and later "The Man" as he progresses through life. He leaves home as a child and joins gangs and actively participates in their less than tasteful activities albeit less than some other party members. He seemed to have started out as a innocent, young child but evolves throughout the novel to become a hard, foreboding man. His motives are unclear as he appears to only care about his survival and perhaps a few other characters like the ex-priest. In the beginning he starts out acting as though he is sickened by what he see's Glanton's gang do but later in the novel, he seems just as eager as some of the adults to commit acts of violence against various people be it villagers or Native Americans. The Kid seems less prone to these acts and fits of anger than his comrades, but despite this is affected by them nonetheless.
              Eventually we see a definite shift in The Kid's demeanor and bearings as the novel progresses and The Kid we started out with has turned into something completely different, A Man. We can assume that he has now aged sufficiently to be called A Man, implying that he must be in his twenties and has gone through much for that age. He is much more similar to his earlier comrades and had a falling out with a couple of them (especially The Judge) and he goes off on his own. He inquires about (pretty much) his only friend, The Ex-priest, but no one knows where he is so we can assume that he just faded away. He demonstrates a certain ruthlessness obviously borne of his exposure to such acts at a young, suggestible age.

Blood Meridian Blog 5: Section Analysis

In Glanton's party, there were two men sharing the same name, John Jackson, one African American, the other white. As can be expected them two were at odds with each other throughout the point where they met and the close proximity to each other did not help the conflict as sparks flew as they lashed out at each other, with words and fists. Eventually someone reckoned that a death or something very like it would occur soon. Their words proved true...

"They camped that night on the foreplain at the foot of a talus slope...into the flames where his life had gone." Pg. 111-112

This section of this chapter is interesting as it shows a conflict between races, black vs. white as two men who share the exact same name are as far apart as humanly can be. Once the gang camped at the base of a slope, two fires were made. Anybody could go to any fire they wanted. The white Jackson was sitting by himself at one and the black Jackson came up and sat down at the same one. Now it was just them two as everyone else was at the other fire. The white Jackson immediatly got all riled up and objected fiercely to him sitting there. He got so angry that he threatened to shoot him. The black Jackson simply got up, asked if it was his finaly decision and once he had an answer, promptly chopped the other Jacksons head off with a knife. Not only this, McCarthy isn't anywhere near done as he continues to describe the bloody scene after Jackson died as we the readers experience every gory detail. This shows the blunt realism of McCarthy's writing style as he describes the blood in his neck "bubbling gently like a stew."

Blood Meridian Blog 4: Rhetoric Study

In McCarthy's book, Blood Meridian, he uses a variety of literary terms, adjectives and rhetoric to get across his points very effectively. For ex:

                 "The dead man lay in a sandy wash. He was... calamitous advance of the sun." Pg. 116-117

This specific paragraph talks about a dead Native American that gang had killed during an Apache attack. McCarthy uses different types of rhetoric and descriptions to emphasize the appearance of the dead man both before and after death. He's old and most likely experienced in the art of war as he has many healed battle wounds. McCarthy also goes into a lot of detail about the different types of war paint he has on his body. Later The Judge comes over a searches through all his belongings and finds some items made out of natural resources. Once he is done, he scalps the Indian in descriptive detail and then the whole group rides out yet again. It would seem that McCarthy wanted to get across the point of how this was a man, killed by his foes, only different in a few ways from the very ones who ended his life was scalped and desecrated as if he were inhuman, an animal. This section further shows the dilapidation of human conscience and society at the time.