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.