The Dance of History in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
1991; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research
ResumoBlood Meridian's odyssey, begun in a Tennessee cabin in 1833, comes to a close when novel's unnamed protagonist, the kid, meets death in an outhouse in Griffin, Texas, in 1878 at hands of a former compatriot named Judge Holden. But murder seems to occur without intelligible motive. The kid and Holden had ridden together years before in John Glanton's gang of professional scalp-hunters in Mexico and American southwest. (1) Shortly before killing, Holden has remarked that kid was a traitor to Glanton's band and its principles in having shown for heathen (299). But McCarthy declines to share with his reader any example of this clemency, and reader expecting logical closure may well feel puzzled about source of Holden's charge. Vereen Bell speculates in The Achievement of Cormac McCarthy that Holden merely surmised that kid had not committed himself fully to rough life of Glanton's crew (120), finding a confirming sign of this breach of faith in kid's inability to kill judge in desert after group was essentially wiped out by Indians. (2) This explanation fails to satisfy on several grounds, but especially because Holden specifies clemency for heathen and not toward himself as kid's failing. This essay is an attempt at discovering an explanation for kid's death. intend to offer two perspectives on a possible motive for Judge's treatment of The first of these involves historical accuracy of McCarthy's presentation of kid's and Judge's dispositions toward each other, as based on sources in literature of period. (3) The second, and much more interesting, perspective derives from arcane philosophical universe in which characters of Blood Meridian exist. This second presentation will raise further questions, of genre, themes, and characterization. McCarthy's source-text for his larger-than-life Holden provides an insight into relationship between historical Judge Holden and an analog to novel's kid. Though Blood Meridian's John Glanton, David and C. O. Brown, Sarah Borginnis and others are found in several historical documents, Judge Holden is a historically verifiable character only in Samuel Chamberlain's autobiographical My Confession, which recounts Chamberlain's days with Glanton gang (259-97). (4) Chamberlain had met and ridden with Holden. (5) Of their relationship Chamberlain writes, I hated him at first sight, and he knew it, yet nothing could be more and kind than his deportment towards me; he would often seek conversation with me (272). Yet, too, this gentle Judge is also man who would steal Chamberlain's horse as they plodded across desert after massacre, shoot at him, and threaten to denounce Chamberlain and other survivors as robbers and murderers. You shall hang in California! he gloats in a yell of triumph (292-93). With these words Holden does, finally, begin to express his hatred of Chamberlain in My Confession. McCarthy may well have based Holden's murder of kid on his recognition that Holden and Chamberlain hate each other in his story's eyewitness source documents. (6) A second approach to motive behind murder is based on premise that McCarthy has provided in his novel a perfectly objectified rationale, accessible within limits of text, that reflects contentions between two men. McCarthy's several clues to an understanding of these hostilities begin to appear quite early in novel. The Tarot scene in Blood Meridian involves reading of several cards (91-96). (7) The card kid chooses is of special importance: quarto de copas, or Four of Cups (94). (8) The Tarot deck resembles modern poker deck in that it employs four suits (Cups, Wands, Swords, Coins) of numbered cards. Both decks use picture cards, though Tarot deck does nor divide its twenty-two picture cards, Major Arcana, into four suits, requiring instead that each of these cards be treated individually. …
Referência(s)