Questions tagged [blood-meridian]

"Blood Meridian" (1985), a Western novel by Cormac McCarthy. Use with the [cormac-mccarthy] tag.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
0 votes
0 answers
47 views

Primers in "Blood Meridian" — an unmentioned/overlooked detail?

This somewhat recapitulates my question about making gunpowder which was so brilliantly answered yesterday. Basically, my question is, given that the gang in Blood Meridian certainly had primers, ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 420
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Does "Blood Meridian" accurately describe gunpowder manufacture?

In Blood Meridian (1985), Cormac McCarthy has the gang of "Indian fighters" surrounded and out of powder, so one of them manages to make it from scratch, making charcoal from wood, saltpeter ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 420
0 votes
0 answers
48 views

Inconsistently generous/decent behavior of bad guys in Blood Meridian?

(Mild spoilers -- but why try to answer if you have not read the book?) While there is no question that the gang indulges often in violence with minimal or literally zero provocation (the puppy ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 420
5 votes
1 answer
648 views

Truce of the burning tree -- how realistic?

Seems to me that in real life we have situations where predators suspend attacks -- best example I can think of is the "Cleaning Station" in the ocean: wrasses clean larger fish and everyone ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 420
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

In Blood Meridian, why does the judge call out the kid as being different?

Toward the end of Blood Meridian, Judge Holden says a curious thing to the kid when the two are hunting each other in the desert: There's a flawed place in the fabric of your heart. Do you think I ...
Matt Thrower's user avatar
  • 20.8k
8 votes
1 answer
2k views

What's the significance of The Idiot in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian?

Toward the end of Blood Meridian, the gang encounters a man whose brother is so severely disabled that he is kept naked in a cage. Obviously, this character cannot speak and does not contribute to the ...
Matt Thrower's user avatar
  • 20.8k
6 votes
1 answer
244 views

What is the purpose of the surrealist content in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian?

The bleak violence of Blood Meridian is punctuated at intervals by various vignettes that have an air of surrealism, almost of black comedy. Some examples from memory include: The "buffones"...
Matt Thrower's user avatar
  • 20.8k
1 vote
0 answers
35 views

Is Blevins in All the Pretty Horses the modern-day version of Blood Meridian's The Kid?

Both The Kid and Blevins are not evil but at the same time extremely dangerous young men (of roughly the same age) on their own due to the death of their fathers. It seems pretty likely that if ...
releseabe's user avatar
  • 420
4 votes
3 answers
436 views

Origin of "give a watermelon a pure fit" in "Blood Meridian"

On page 334 of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Elrod responds to the man’s assertion that the ears on his scapular were taken from Apaches by saying that the “Apaches would give a watermelon a pure ...
Pietro Paparella's user avatar
16 votes
4 answers
10k views

What is the meaning of the epilogue in Blood Meridian?

Cormac McCarthy is famously tight-lipped as to his own interpretations of his work. Nevertheless, there are some clear themes in his novel Blood Meridian: human propensity to violence and the efforts ...
Matt Thrower's user avatar
  • 20.8k