While reading Blood Meridian, I began to notice a pattern that seems to be consistent across Cormac McCarthy’s novels. It appears that the characters and story exist as a means for a broader message to be delivered to the audience. This is a break from the usual formula that most authors use when writing novels; that is, they write a novel to tell an interesting story and nothing more. Their focus is typically on the main protagonist or protagonists as they overcome some hardship. However, McCarthy takes a much less active role in his story. Instead of driving forward a plot in which the protagonists overcome difficulty, he chooses instead to observe characters and how they naturally react to problems. In Blood Meridian, the kid joins the Glanton gang as it wanders the desert looking for Indians to kill for bounty. No Country for Old Menspends much of its story showing Moss’ attempts to evade Chigurgh, only for him to end up getting killed in the least climactic way possible. The Road, follows a father and son as they desperately wander a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of food and shelter. In all of these cases, there is not a clear and forward moving plot. Unlike traditional novels, there is no mission for the main characters except survival. The characters continuously fight for their survival throughout the entire course of the book; this causes the plot to move in circles rather than a line, as the plot resets every time a character finds him/herself in danger.
While this may sound like a boring style of writing, McCarthy’s novels keep the reader engaged and interested in the story. In my opinion, this is because the novels are designed to expose humanity’s darker side in a brutally realistic way that most audiences have never experienced before. The characters seem like relatively normal people which allows the audience to relate to them. So, when these characters commit, or are victimized by the intense violence that seems to characterize McCarthy’s novels, the audience is able to relate to it. By doing this, McCarthy reveals how the darker side of human nature is very much present in all of us, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise. This also provides a much-needed break from the traditional heroes of novels that have no flaws and are morally superior to the audience.
Cormac McCarthy uses his stories and characters as a means of getting his message across to the readers. The stories and characters are crafted specifically to be relatable and interesting to the audience so that the message isn’t forced. So, in a way, McCarthy’s novels are simply a creative and interesting approach for him to illustrate his perspective on the dark side of human nature. The characters and stories are interesting because of their realism and relatability, but they are replaceable. Moss for example, appeared to be the main character of No Country for Old Men, but he got killed and the story continued on without any problems. It’s not the characters or even the story itself that gives meaning to the story, it’s the message that it sends to the audience. This is the reason for the repetitive nature of his stories. If they had a linear plotline, they would distract from their true message and the audience would be left with another, likely mediocre, traditional novel experience. Also, the circular plotline demonstrates how humanity never changes or learns from its mistakes; it just continues on its journey for survival. As a whole, I believe that Cormac McCarthy’s style of writing is revolutionary and does an extremely effective job of sending a message to the audience.
Great American Novels 