No Country for God: The Brutality of Western Territorial Appropriation in Blood Meridian

Author:

García Jiménez Sergio1

Affiliation:

1. University of Oviedo Oviedo Spain

Abstract

Abstract In 1985 American author Cormac McCarthy published Blood Meridian, a novel that is set against the backdrop of the conquest of the West, a momentous and still relevant process that has acquired quasi-mythical dimensions throughout history and that is undoubtedly embedded in the United States’ national consciousness. In this article I will show the different mechanisms employed by Cormac McCarthy to deconstruct conventional Western narratives that glorify and sanction the Westward expansion as a courageous endeavour that shaped the American nation, hence underplaying the more devastating and pernicious side of this chapter of America’s imperialistic undertakings. To that end, I will argue that McCarthy contests the main tenets of the crucial 1893 Frontier Thesis proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner, in particular the depiction of American colonial expansion as a source of progress and democratic development; likewise I will contend that, in Blood Meridian, McCarthy aligns himself with the ideas of New Western Historians that offer a revisionist perspective of the country’s past, revealing such brutality and wickedness exerted in the appropriation of the western territories that seemed to deprive the process of any hope of God’s mercy.

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Reference31 articles.

1. Brinkley, Alan. 1992. “The Western Historians Don’t Fence Them In”. The New York Times September 20. [accessed 13 January 2022].

2. Broncano Rodríguez, Manuel. 2008. “Cormac McCarthy’s Grotesque Allegory in Blood Meridian”. Journal of English Studies 5: 31–46.

3. Buntline, Ned. 1887/2010. Buffalo Bill and His Adventures in the West. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

4. Dorson, James. 2013. “Demystifying the Judge: Law and Mythical Violence in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian”. Journal of Modern Literature 36.2: 105–121.

5. Frye, Steven. 2009. Understanding Cormac McCarthy. Understanding Contemporary American Literature. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

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