"He Never Sleeps":a Study Of Violence In Blood Meridian

American writer Cormac McCarthy’s 1985 novel Blood Meridian inspires the reader to explore its multivalence through different paths,and the study of violence is a mainstream.The unique geographical location and cultural feature of the nineteenthcentury U.S.-Mexico border complicates the political,economic,ideological,religious and military conditions of this land,which endows McCarthy with great creative space.Judge Holden,the protagonist of the novel,is representative of such sophistication.His origin is vague: from literature,history,myth,and politics,to religion,philosophy,science,and music,he is everywhere and nowhere.McCarthy’s encyclopedic knowledge and the complexity of violence mirrored on Holden require us to interpret violence using an inter-disciplinary method and resorting to history as well as literature.In discussing how McCarthy unmasks the relationship between violence and human civilization,this thesis attempts to introduce such a question: what does violence mean to the novel.Consulting both the domestic and overseas research on violence,this study intends to trace the violence in Blood Meridian from three aspects: history,religion and aesthetics.Primarily,Blood Meridian is a novel based on history and going beyond history,which means it should be read against the historical facts in the U.S.-Mexico border of the midnineteenth century,and its ancient and contemporary resonance.Not only the material foundation of the rise of its violence,but also the crazy ideological driving force should be dissected.The novel thus forms two double-narratives on the historical level.The thesis finds that the wild growth of McCarthy’s violence reflects the uncontrollable side of the Enlightenment.The strengthened anthropocentrism and the advance in science and technology create triumphant calamity.Meanwhile,the unbridled romanticism,both the enemy and the heir of the Enlightenment,triggers the indomitable will of Glanton’s gang.Secondly,the violence in Blood Meridian is inseparable from the religion in the secular age.Since the Axial Age,violence and religion becomes natural complicity.Then in modern society,religion is narrowed down to moralism,incapable of resisting the violence purified by the sacred killing.Therefore,the plausible incompetence of religious images denies the traditional transcendence and reflects the cross pressures of belief and unbelief.Finally,the aestheticization of violence is the kernel of this novel.Through negative sublime and Dionysian spirit,violent aesthetics surpasses the pure perceptual impact,uniting sense with sensibility.It leads us to search for the real that violence is eternal.The violence in Blood Meridian casts off the rough judgment on the so-called violence.The writing rejects an absolute hope or despair,and a clear moral transformation or redemption is absent.Contrarily,it is a complex representation of violence,which entrenches itself in history and humanity,and a warning for the endless human violence.This thesis argues that McCarthy’s violence writing summons people to accept tragedy in life with an aesthetic attitude,and contains a dissuasion of the reverence toward death,thereby enriching the thought on violence and death self-reflexively.