Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Similaries in Cormac McCarthy's Texts

Just to help Amber's point from yesterday in class, chainsaws are used in murders here in ohio.. just not since 1990. "Cult member Gregory Winship, 29, has admitted running a chain saw to muffle the sound of the shots that killed the Averys, whom authorities speculate had fallen from favor and might have been planning to defect. " (This is from an article from People magazine: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20118284,00.html) Basically the news is used for awareness, although I do believe they focus too much on murders than they need to, especially if they are not close to the region.


While I was reading No Country for Old Men, I found that the ending was exactly what I thought it would be in the sense that the good never triumphs. The bad or evil seem to always come out on top. I wanted Moss to get the money to his wife, kill Chirgur, then go back to her where they could live happily ever after. At times it is not impossible to think that Moss could come up on top with how clever he was when it came to hiding the money or finding escape routes, etc. However, McCarthy does not write like that. To better explain my point, in Child of God, Lester is murdering all these girls but never gets caught - it is never proved that the murders were committed by him. I, as the reader, wanted the sheriff to do is job in trying to find the missing girls and catch Lester before he continued to kill more much earlier on. Instead, he is put into a mental institution more or less where he is fed, kept warm, living better than he did when he was wondering around the wilderness. In All the Pretty Horses evil does not really triumph the good, but John Grady does not get the girl or the perfect cowboy job. I wanted him and Alejandra to run away and get married, maybe even find someway to run a horse ranch, but no, John Grady ends up heartbroken and with nothing at the end wondering where he is off to next. Blood Meridian, well that's an easy one. The judge is truly evil. I wanted the boy to shoot him or kill him, something. I also wanted the boy to find the right path or what not after his time in jail when he seemed to come into some realization about the wrong the judge and the gang did. It did not end like that. The judge is happily naked and dancing, after murdering and doing who knows that to the kid (conclusion that the reader can make). Basically, Cormac McCarthy does no want any aspect of the ending to be happy or what the reader would like or expect to happen. For those of you who are reading The Road right now, it will be easy to find the same trend; it will not have the ending that you want or hope for.

I found that by thinking this way while reading No Country for Old Men, that I was not as disappointed with the outcome. It makes the texts all seem very predictable, and I have come to find it a constant. It makes me curious to whether or not his other works, such as The Crossing or Cities of the Plain, will follow this same kind of pattern.

1 comment:

  1. That's thirty years--and Avery didn't kill people with a chainsaw--he killed people with a gun. People get shot all the time, likely because it's the only thing guns can be used for. Chainsaws have other applications.

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