THE WESTERN FICTION OF CORMAC MCCARTHY by BETTY WALKER MORRIS, B.M., M.S., D.M.A.

A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

^proved

May, 1996 Copyright 1996, Betty Walker Morris ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply appreciative to Dr. Patrick Shaw for his most patient and wise counsel during these two years and to Dr. Douglas CroweU for his very thoughtful suggestions for this thesis.

I am also most grateful for the encouragement and support expressed by my daughter, Cathy.

Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

ABSTRACT v

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION 1

n. THE DANCE OF DEATH IN RLOOD MERIDIAN 19

m. THE KNIGHT, THE QUEEN AND THE BILLL\RDS PLAYER

IN ALL THE PRETTY HORSES 41

TV. THE MATRIX IN THE CROSSING 64

V. CONCLUSION: THE DARKENING LAND 85

BIBLIOGRAPHY 95

IV ABSTRACT

The Uterary violence of Cormac McCarthy emerges from the American frontieri n his three most recent novels. Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. All the

Pretty Horses, and The Crossing, which my thesis addresses through their common geographic settings, similarities in protagonists, and presence of recurring motife. The three leitmotife, the element of order, horses, and bones, afford an examination of the presence of foreign cultures on the American frontier,th e violence embedded within them, and the devastation wrought by their influence. McCarthy focuses the violent energy of these cultures in metaphoric centers which not only serve as catalysts to develop themes, but also offer a deeper reading of the text. My thesis is that this subtextual reading reveals the protagonists as representatives of the burgeoning American frontier culture as it estabhshes a political relationship with hs neighbor, Mexico. Although McCarthy presents these protagonists with the heinous frontier violence, he also suggests that the future may hold the possibility of a new beginning. CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Cormac McCarthy terrorizes the literary landscape from Tennessee to Cahfomia with a legendary web of violence, one which permeates both the societies and the characters in his works. Within a twenty-nine year period McCarthy pubUshed accounts of this darkness in seven novels and one play: The Orchard Keeper (1965); Outer Dark

(1968); Chad QfQod (1973); Suttree (1979); Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in thgWggt (1985); All the Pretty Horses (1992); The Stonemason (1994); and The Crossing

(1994). He set the first four novels, as well as the play. The Stonemason, in the rural areas of Tennessee and Appalachia and along the riverfront inner city areas of Knoxville; his three most recent novels. Blood Meridian. All the Pretty Horses and The Cros-sing- explore the American west. In all of McCarthy's work a most hideous presence of violence affects the characters, but the texture of violence assumes a unique dimension in the three western novels. Because of their shared western setting and the specific characterization and thematic material, which I will discuss later in this chapter, I have chosen to limit this study to the novels Rinod Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, and The

Crossing, My thesis is that in the western novels, more so than the earlier ones, McCZarthy examines violence as it results fromchallenge s by domestic and foreign influences to the natural order of sequences representmg the cultural development of United States. The personification of the European cultures occurs in Rlood Meridian with the figure of

Judge Holden; in All the Pretty Horses McCarthy describes the tradhional Mexican heritage in the powerfiil figure of the Duefia Alfonsa. Rather than Mexican cuhure being centered in one figure m The Crossing, hs influence emerges through the several characters the protagonist encounters. In each of these novels the young protagonists represent American culture as it reacts to, challenges, and ultimately assimilates the influences of the older societies. The violence which resuhs from these foreign influences on the younger American nation emphasizes the intermption of its natural order of development and the consequent lack of its own unique culture. Describing the European influence in the American west. Earl Pomeroy notes: "The Westerner has been fundamentally imitator rather than innovator, and not merely in the obvious though irapoTtani sense that his culture was Western European rather than aboriginal" (581-82).

My thesis shows that this imitator had a violent birth in the foreign presence in this young nation.

The societies which McCarthy examines in his earUer works differ significantly in their e?q)ression of violence from those in the western novels, and this difference figures in the grouping of the novels selected for this thesis. Ahhough the degree of horror caused by aggression does not differ, as each work affords a well-developed catalog of heinous acts, McCarthy does not describe the Tennesseans and their culture in terms of a natural sequence and order which foreign influences violate. Restricted geographically to relatively small areas, the characters know only the violence which develops from conflicts within the culture. In Outer Dark Culla and Rinthy e?q)erience violence which is no less heinous than that in the westem novels, but contrasts with the westem violence by the placement of its origin in their own incestuous relationship. Lester Ballard recognizes the violence which consumes his own Ufe as the protagonist in Child of God and checks himself into the hospital "The nightduty nurse had just come down the hall with a cup of coffee and found Ballard leaning against the counter. A v/eedshaped onearmed human swaddled up m outsized overalls and covered all over with red mud. His eyes were caved and smoking. I'm supposed to be here, he said" (192). McCarthy also addresses the inner nature of the violence in the introduction to Suttree. Here order is not broken, but it does not function to protect against the violence which comes from withiiL

We are come to a world within the world. In these alien reaches, these maugre sinks and intersthial wastes that the righteous see from carriage and car another life dreams. Illshapen or black or deranged, fiigitive of all order, strangers in everyland.

The night is quiet. Like a camp before a battle. The city beset by a thing unknown and will it come from forest or sea? The murengers have walled the pale, the gates are shut, but lo the thing's inside...(4-5)

Further justification for the grouping of Blond Meridian with the two published books of The Border Trilogy. All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, appears in their common westem frontier environment. This geographical area of the United States west of the Mississippi River with extensions into and out of Mexico provides similarity in the environmental elements with which the characters of the three novel must contend.

Although separated by approximately one-hundred years, the protagonists of the last two novels experience a primitive land which is much the same as that found by the characters m pioQ^ M?ri(;lifln Hardships resuhing from extremities of weather pkigue the westemers in their solitary surroundings in a way the earUer Tennessee characters did not experience.

Lester Ballard endures freezing conditions in Child of God but his solitary existence is self-mduced and, in reality, he is only a matter of a few miles from a warm sheher in the hospital Sheher for the kid, John CJrady and Billy, if available, looms some hundreds of miles away; the sheer bmtality and extremity of their conditions do not appear in the

Southern novels. John Mihon notes three aspects of the American west upon which

McCarthy draws in his development of order and its violation: the historical, the geographical, and the mythical (41). However, many characteristics of the west combine to form the context for violence and the challenges to order in these three novels. In a passage describing the significance of the westem landscape, Milton writes:

Achievement is all the greater because of the scope of the land, an immensity which defies the limits of even the long novel or the trilogy. The landscape is overpowering and seems to be without form. Since the land is often a character in the Westem novel, as well as setting, it cannot be taken Hghtly. (49)

Hardships arising from environmental fectors account for only a portion of the effects engendered by the frontiersetting ; clearly, psychological conditions of frontiersmen inform further difficuhies of the soUtary life. The term "frontier" suggests a variety of uses.

In The Frontier in American Lherature Lucy Lockwood Hazard notes:

....this apparent looseness of terminology is inherent in the very shifting nature of the frontier,whic h meant at one time one thing, at another time, another, and yet which is indispensable alike to the fermer and to the fiir trader, to the Puritan and to the profiteer, to the Argonaut of the gold rush and to the Titan of the railway finance, (xvii)

The inner frontiers which the characters fece in McCarthy's westem novels mandate a break with the past. Finding it impossible to maintain contact with femilyan d former communities, the frontieradventure r must develop the physical and psychological resources that are available in his new location. William Schafer's e}q)lanation, though based on McCarthy's firstnovels , aptly describes all of them: "The tragic element in

McCarthy's novels is the tragedy of isolation and solq)sism~the individual retreating into himself^ refiising to recognize his own humanity...This, McC^arthy shows us, is one branch of the human dilemma. It is possible to renounce humanity, to fell backward out of grace and to Uve without authority" (118). This separation of a character from a femiliarsociet y defines and en^hasizes his individualism. Without the stmcture of the established community, the frontierperso n looks inward to find a source for the growth and development needed to adapt to the constantly changing conditions of the frontier. This constantly changing nature of the frontier presents a need for constant renewal and rebirth; with each renewal comes hope for the fiiture. Hazard notes, "The spirit of the frontier is the spirit of beginning again, of building anew, of creating a reality after the pattern of one's dream" (162). In each of the westem novels a break with the past propels the protagonists across the frontier into an area which is vuhierable to the environmental and psychological violence of other cultures. As suggested by the titles of two of the novels.

Blood Meridian and T\\^ (7-rf>

Further similarities found m the westem novels support the study of them as a unit.

The similarities in the characteristics of the adolescent boys who fimction as protagonists in each of the novels make them virtually indistinguishable from each other. Having no functional femilyunit , each leaves home to become a disenfi-anchised teenager; in the books of The Border Trilogy the protagonists begin as sbcteen-year-olds, and in the beginning of Blood Meridian the kid is fourteen. Their travels by horseback take them through the westem desert areas of the United States and into Mexico where they all exhibh some degree of proficiency in the Spanish language. They have all known and survived evil m their personal Uves. The kid lives through numerous barroom fistfights along the Mississippi riverfrontan d in Texas; John Ch-ady survives an attack in prison from a hired killer; and Billy witnesses the torture of a wolf with whom he identifies so closely that he eventually kills her himself to end the violence. Uhimately, each of the protagonists recognizes the impotent and violent condition of the culture. These characteristics of the westem protagonists not only relate the three novels to each other but also distinguish them from the Southern novels.

A much more diverse collection of protagonists exists in McCarthy's earlier works.

Not only do their basic characteristics differ substantially fromthos e of the westem protagonists, but the protagonists bear little similarity among themselves. The southem characters, older than the teenaged westem protagonists, fimction in an impoverished rural

Tennessee setting, except for the one urban environment of Suflies. Although they also lack frinctional femiUes, they remain within one hundred miles of their homes, a marked contrast to the thousands of miles covered by the westem protagonists. The Southem protagonists also display differences in intellectual development, ranging fromth e dementia of Lester Ballard in Child of God and the minimal mentality of Culla Hohne in Outer Dark to the educated background of Suttree. Contrasting further with the westem protagonists, the protagonists in the Southem novels do not provide an intertextual reading related to national and cultural characteristics.

Similarities among the westem protagonists, their common geographical background and the prevalence of heinous violence are not the only factors positioning

Blood Meridian. All the Pretty Horses, and The Crossing apart from McCarthy's earUer novels. The author's consistent use of specific metaphors in all three works weaves identifiable and unifying threads among them, further strengthening their relationship.

Though numerous such leitmotife appear, in this thesis I identify and address the most significant three, examining each for its thematic in^ortance and unifying quality within the context of the novels. The three motife are: (1) an element of order, (2) bones, and

(3) horses. While providing a unifying function, these motife at the same time relate directly to the violence, and their presence or absence informs the reading of violence in these novels. In the examination of the westem works as a group, apart fromth e

Southem novels, the use of these common motife permits and strengthens a more clearly, fiilly defined understanding of McCarthy's writing. The appearance of these three motife in the westem novels, but not in the earUer works, provides additional cause for the separation of the westem novels for the purpose of this study.

Although this grouping of the three westem novels provides a viable unit for study, it does not appear as such a unit in the critical writing on Cormac McCarthy. The paucity of criticism addressing the westem novels as a group results in part fromth e recent pubUcation date of The Crossing and does not suggest that such a study lacks vaUdity. Although some authors examine both Blood Meridian and AU the Pretty Horses in the same essay, their work rarely reflects a comparative approach. In 'Tate and Free WiU on the American Frontier: Cormac McCarthy's Westem Fiction" Tom Pilkington does address the two books, making several broad points which focus on fete and its affect on the characters. Pilkington notes that "McCarthy does not posit a whoUy detenninistK universe. Humans do make choices—frequently bad choices, but choices nonetheless—that critically affect their destmies" (315). This critic goes on to explain his view of

McCarthy's motivation for using the period of one^undred years to separate the time frames of the two books: 'Tt is no accident that the separation is precisely one hundred years. One of the purposes of the novels is to demonstrate a continuity in our history that time apparently is powerless to erase" (315). As this thesis addresses the in:qx)rtance of the historical influence in these novels, Pilkington's remarks coincidentally support this point. Commenting on the first volume of The Border Trilogy, he describes the author's use of the horse: "McCarthy's horses, however, represent the vital life force of the universe. They stand for what is pristine and unfeUen nature in its most elemental form"

(319). This statement suggests a purity and goodness in contradiction to the animal's relation to evil, addressed in Chapter IE.

In his 1992 essay "You Know About Mojave Rattlesnakes?" Richard B.

Woodward makes a rather generaUzed remark about the violence in Blood Meridian and that in All the Pretty Horses: "By comparison with the sonority and carnage of Blood

Meridian the world of All the Pretty Horses is less risky-repressed but sane" (40).

Woodward also provides mteresting background material which predates the pubUcation

8 of The Crossing and hs lengthy opening section, located in southem Arizona, about the protagonist and a wotf. According to Woodward, McCarthy had expressed interest in wolves to ecologist and noveUst, Edward Abbey. "Shortly before Abbey's death in 1989, they discussed a covert operation to reintroduce the wolf to southem Arizona" (30).

Whh the pubUcation in 1995 of Sacred Violence: A Reader's Companion to

Cormac McCarthy, editors Wade Hall and Rick WaUach provide researchers with a broad spectrum of critical approaches to McCarthy's work, mostly dating from 1993 and The

First McCarthy Conference at Bellarmine CoUege. The only essay which makes a titular grouping of this author's works is "The Hero as Philosopher and Survivor: An Afl;erword on The Stonemason and The Crossing." In it Wade HaU finds a similarity between the play and the novel, both published in 1994, in their expression of the author's '^dsion of human life and his acceptance of the way things are. The play is less successful than the novel" (189). In a general statement describing the play. Hall notes: "At the least it is a testament of acceptance based on the hope that a serene and benign presence is uhimately in control of aU that happens" (191). This attribution of control to some other force, or fete, appears in the three westem novels and forms a point of address in my chapters examining the individual novels. Also seeking an explanation of an extra-textual control present in p)ood Meridian, Leo Daugherty offers a gnostic analysis in "Cjravers False and

Tme." He reasons that:

Finally, how could it be so exhilarating and so obviously good for us to read such an excessive, doom-obsessed, bone-chilUng novel of blood? How could such a thing be so oddly exuberant and eUcit such a pleasurable response?...! think Blood Meridian eUchs the same human responses as Cjreek tragedy...(169) John Emil Sepich provides an extensive study of fete, firsti n his 1991 essay "The

Dance of History in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian" and later in his 1993 volume

Notes on Blood Meridian. Examining fete as revealed in the Gypsy reading of Tarot cards, Sepich explains: 'Discovering fete, divining it, is important and possible in the world of the historical romance which is p)of>fl M?ridj^p^' (27). An expansion of this theme also occurs in Sepich's Notes on Blood Meridian in which he discusses McCarthy's writing as foUows:

His organizational pattern in Blood Meridian, though arcanely based on Qabalistic relationships present in Freemasonry and Tarot card symbolism, is a philosophical approach to Ufe entirely consistent with both his theme and the historical record. Only when the influence of this controlUng pattern of organization is recognized can the elements of romance in Blood Meridian be qjpreciated. (118)

Later in the same essay Sepich addresses an aspect which I investigate in the discussions of the individual novels: the ramifications of attenq)ts to challenge or violate fete. In coupling Gnosticism and HeUenism Sepich sees a "depiction of how power works in the making and erasing of culture, and of what the human condition amounts to when a person opposes that power and thence gets introduced to fete" (166). The volume by

Sepich, Notes on Blood Meridian, provides an exceUent source for historical data on both the violence of this period and certain of the characters in this novel, as weU as critical essays by Sepich; a map of the territories traveled by the kid and his coUeagues, translations of the numerous foreign expressions, concordances of specific subjects and an extensive bibUography also appear in this one volume.

10 Of particular assistance in my study of certain intertextual aspects common to the three westem novels, the essay by Rick Wallach, another editor of Sacred Violence, affords substantial msight. He, too, sees the judge as a representative of other cultures; however similar in approach, his resuh differs fromth e one I reach in this thesis. In

"Judge Holden, Blood Meridian's Evil Archon" Wallach goes beyond a Uteral reading of the judge, seeing him as a representation of the Hindu god Shiva. "But clearly Holden, described as 'a great pale djinn' (96) or as 'an icon' (147) incarnates the attributes of an oriental deity. SpecificaUy, the judge's poses suggest Shiva, who dances the dance of war and cosmic destmction" (128).

Numerous writers seek to explsm the violence in Blood Meridian. In "'The Very

Life of Darkness', A Readmg of f^joofl M^ri^i^^?'' Steven Shaviro makes an interesting generalization about the effect of the unending texture of violence on the reader. "The scariest thing about Rjo^d ]U^ri(^iap is that it is a euphoric and exhilarating book, rather than a tragically aUenated one, or a gloomy, depressing one...Once we have started to dance, once we have been swept up in the game, there is no pulling back" (154). Shaviro is also one critic who recognizes and comments on order, one of the leitmotife identified earUer in this chapter as occurring particularly in the westem novels. "...[J]ust as we can never possess the world...by the same logic we can never transgress the order of the world or estrange ourselves from h—no matter how hard we try" (148).

Also addressing the unrelenting aspect of the violence in Blood Meridian, Walter

SuUivan somewhat fecetiously sums up the actions committed by Glanton's coUection of

11 scalphunters on their travels through the west:

...so this band of outlaws victimizes those >\iiose Uves are supposed to be made safer by the killing of the Indians. But plot does not matter here. In McC^hy's novels evil is too endemic to require motivation. The story moves forward in single-minded celebration of rapinean d slaughter, reUeved only by an occasional feinthearted thrust at philosophy and now and then a suggestion, never graphic, of lust. (651)

Although most of the critical writing on McCarthy focuses on Blood Meridian and the earUer works, a few authors have addressed the first of the novels in The Border

Trilogy. For the most part, their views express a recognition that violence in the novel, since there appears to be less of it and since fewer graphic details assail the reader, assumes a less in^rtant position. The violence in AU the Pretty Horses, however, forms an everpresent backdrop for the entire novel, and prompts Michael Coffey to make one of the few critical references to it. In "New Cirit: The Dawn of the McCarthy Era" he notes:

...McCarthy steadily deUvers dismemberment and scalping, dulling the senses like ether, and aUows the haUucination that terror is as elemental as any Ufe force...Wherever one opens this book, it gapes back like a wound, and yet it is hard to look away. McCarthy's fierce imaginings—conq^lete to the last chilling and always surprising detail...seduces from readers their innocence. One is both numbed by the violence and deeply in thraU to hs spectacle. (70)

For the development of an intertextual reading of these novels Nancy Kreml offers a most relevant insight in her study of McCarthyean linguistics in "StyUstic Variation and

Cognitive Constraint in All the pretty Horses." a chapter in Sacred Violence. Describing her use of Unguistics to arrive at an understanding of the work, Kreml writes: 'Tt is by manipulation of stylistic choice, in particular the interplay between two styles, that

12 McCarthy is able, even so, to aUow the reader access not only to the inner workings of the characters' minds but also to interpretations of the events of the novel" (137).

As demonstrated by this review of the relevant Uterature, most of the critical material on the work of Cormac McCarthy focuses on his use of extreme and heinous violence. This thesis also addresses violence in hs emergence as a societal presence and as a representation of the dissolution of the order found there. However, because my examination looks at violence as a general presence, I make no attempt to analyze specific types or causes of violence, which would entail a sociological analysis outside the scope of my thesis. What emerges fromthi s study is that in McCarthy's westem fiction the natural order of the culture appears in various forms and any chaUenges to that order produces violence.

In order to examine this violence, both personal and societal, and its effects, I address each of the westem novels individually, including in each chapter a summary of the novel's plot. FoUowing the summary of Blood Meridian m Chapter 11,1 study the nature of the violence perpetrated by the community of scalphunters and by the societies outside their group within the context of the order, one of the three leitmotife of this thesis, fromwhic h it emerges. McCarthy makes use of the various frontier orders, geographical, psychological and legal, as weU as the titular reference to "meridian," at times a term designating Uneal borders, to emphasize the importance of the context of violence. The second motif of this study is that of the horse and its fimction in these novels. Though a natural relation exists between the frontier settmg and the horse, in this motif a particularly direct relation develops through its association with violence.

13 McCarthy's horses fimction in their typical role as transportation across the westem stretches, but in the second chapter I wdU look at the darker role they play in the perpetration of violence. Also associated with violence, the third moti^ bones, assumes in

BlQQd Meridian, as in the other two westem novels, an identity with the past. The words of the enigmatic Epilogue teU of a scene on the plains "upon which are the bones and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather" (337). By relating bones to the past and to violence, their relation then, as seen in Chapter H, with the judge becomes an inaportant factor in the development of his identity.

The central figureo f Chapter n is the judge, a powerfiil presence given both the breadth of his experience and the heinous quaUty of his violence. He commands an aUegiance from aU in this novel A Uteral reading reveals him as the epitome of violence, but a deeper reading leads to another understandmg of the novel and the focus of my thesis. By recognizmg his old-world trahs as more than quaint characteristics, a picture of emerges of the judge as a diaboUcal figureleadin g a band of kiUers who seem to relish their association with death. His dance, his smile and his musical talents combine -with his diaboUcal propensities in a description reminiscent of the Renaissance Dance of Death; ahhough not physicaUy depicted in the traditional skeletal appearance, the judge's association with bones, nonetheless, relates him to the skeleton figure. Thus, flmctioning as a metaphor for European cuhure, the judge and his violence effect only devastation and destmction of hope for the young American nation, represented by the kid, beginning anew on its westem frontier.

14 In Chapter EI I address the first volume of The Border Trilogy. AU the Pretty

HorggS, findingth e violence in h to differ somewhat from that in the preceding novel

This violence provides a subtexture, particularly in the Mexican society and ultimately in

John Grady Cole, and often flmctions as an undefined and unrecognized presence. The political violence, which McCarthy introduces through the life of one of the major characters, the Duena Alfonsa, serves as one of the constant, but unspecified, fectors under which the young protagonist suffers. I examine this Unking of the violence in

Mexican society and m hs historical figures to the protagonist, in an effort to reveal John

Cjrady as representative of the United States in his encounters with Alfonsa, the representative of traditional Mexican cuhure. The clash of this culture and the m^rialistic tendencies >\iiich inhiaUy propel John Ch^ady mto Mexico enflame the smoldering violence already present there.

Just as I identify the judge as a focal point of violence in Blood Meridian, I view

Alfonsa as the center for the violent energy in AU the Pretty Horses. Her association with the game of chess Uterarily presents her as a link to a Medieval culture and hs strategies of violence, represented in the warfere of the game. StrategicaUy poshioned in the center of the book, the chess games between Alfonsa and John CJrady describe a chaUenge not only of individuals, but of two cultures. Alfonsa's personification of the game, as the powerful

C^een, serves to enq>hasize her designation as the repository for the violent energy of the novel. A further exploration of the chess metaphor wiU identify John Cjrady as a knight and Jimmy as a pawn. Although Alfonsa functions as the C^een, the game of billiards

15 which John Cirady plays whh Rocha reveals through its nature that Rocha actuaUy exerts the uhnnate controlling force in AU the Pretty Horses. By employing the cue ball, Rocha reUes upon an intermediary entity to send the baUs into the pockets; I wiU show Alfonsa to represent that agential force >\Wch, through her violent energy, effects Rocha's wishes.

The three lehmotife identified earUer as and element of order, horses and bones are also evident m AU the Pretty Horses and provide a basis for study in the third chapter. Of particular importance to this thesis is the violation of established order and the violence which results when this occurs. Given the break in order occurring with John Grrady's loss of his right of primogeniture, I wiU demonstrate as motivation for his trip into Mexico and courtship of Alejandra a hope for acquishion of property in Mexico. Sequences of highly skiUed chess moves by Alejandra and John Cjrady on the pattemed chess board fiirther develop the context of order fromwhic h violence emerges. Among the many uses of the order motif, one relates specificaUy to the second moti^ that of horses. By mtroducing new techniques into the tradhional order of horse breeding and training, John Cjrady experiences the violence which resuhs from his chaUenge to that tradhion. In feet, horses form such an mtegral part of John Cjrady's Ufe that they provide a common mterest which he develops whh Rocha. I wiU also show the mportance of the thhd moti^ bones, as it forms a context for violence. By usmg ivory and hom chess pieces and ivory bilUard baUs, products of imperialistic forces, McCarthy strengthens his aUegorical representation of national governments and cultures m the figures of Alfonsa, Rocha and John Cjrady while at the same tnne also developing the context of violence.

16 Chapter FV focuses on a study of The Crossing, the second volume m The Border

Trilogy: in this study I address the young American boy's encounter whh violence when he crosses into Mexico. Through an examination of the leitmotif of order, I support my argument that the violation of cultural stmctures produces a violence which consumes aU.

In The Cro.s.sing the metaphor of the matrix configures that order with boundaries which, when violated, resuh in violence. As did the figure of the judge as the leader of the Dance of Death and Alfonsa whh her control of the society represented by the chess pieces, so too does the figureo f the matrix fimction m The Crossing as the core of the violent energy and as a motivational force for Billy, as the aUegorical representative of the Unhed

States, m his relations whh Mexico and hs culture. In this fourth chapter I also address the motif of horses which figures as the catalyst for the plot m last two-thhds of the novel

From BiUy's and Boyd's search for their stolen horses, violence, including the death of

Boyd, emerges. During the course of the boy's search they stay at a Mexican ejido, formerly the hacienda of a notorious Mexican poUtician and owner of thoroughbred horses. This former hacienda Unks the motif of the matrix with that of horses m the context of hs violent history. McCarthy's use of bones, the thhd of the leitmotife addressed m this study, also associates closely whh violence m The Crossing, On BiUy's final northward joumey he brings his brother's bones, evidence of the violence perpetrated on him m Mexico, back to their New Mexico homeland for burial This particular knage of the remains, bundled onto a travois, a frame m the design of a matrix which BiUy attaches to his horse, combmes the three motife which I identify as representative of the violence of

17 the novel Unique to this novel, I find a hope e3q)ressed by McCarthy m the emergence of the sun in hs rightflil order foUowing the last catastrophic violence m the New Mexico desert.

Concluding in Chapter V, I review the use McCarthy makes of the three motife, order, horses and bones, and their relation to violence; these motife in combination provide the context for my intertextual reading of the novels. By showmg that the protagonists and associated characters aUegoricaUy represent the actions of the Unhed

States and the older cultures of Europe and Mexico, I vaUdate my thesis that McCarthy finds the dissolution of natural order responsible for the violence in the Unhed States.

18 CHAPTER n THE DANCE OF DEATH IN BLOOD MERIDIAN

This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the tmest form of divination. It is the testing of one's wUl and the wiU of another whhin that larger wiU which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing ofthe unity of existence. War is god. (Blood 249^

Cormac McCarthy mtroduces a philosophy of war m Blood Meridian whh the words of Judge Holden, who describes violence, hs components and its function, as it establishes hs ubiquitous presence in the novel The firsto f McCarthy's works set in the west. Blood Meridian foUows two figures, the kid and the judge, through their Uves of violence, first as comrades in a band of scalphunters and finaUyi n a personal confrontation with each other. Although committmg the most hemous forms of violence, the judge also possesses characteristics representative of older European cultures. Given this muhi-sided personaUty, he serves as the philosophical and educational mentor for members of a decadent society of fiUbusterers.Th e group crosses the westem American frontieri n a parade of death, gathering figures from different social strata as they go along. The judge thus assumes the dunensions ofthe figure who leads m artistic and Uterary portrayals of the Dance of Death. ParaUeUng the judge's reference to fete as "that larger wiU" and hs identification ofthe select through a violent "testmg," the Renaissance citizen also acknowledged the identification ofthe select through the guideUnes of John Calvm and his doctrine of control by predestination. The aspects of violence, death and European

19 civiUzation, which appear m the judge, permh him to aUegoricaUy represent the influential role which European cuhure plays m the development ofthe westem Unhed States.

Through his interaction with the young kid, representative ofthe developing American nation, the mature judge assumes a dominant poshion with his cultural skills and his unbridled violence just as the importation of European civilization did m the formation of the Unhed States.

A summary ofthe novel establishes the general context and direction ofthe theme.

Beghining the exposhion of violence m Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness m the

West. Cormac McCarthy introduces the protagonist, known as the kid, whh his fether's description ofthe celestial violence which heralded his son's buth: "Night of your bnth.

Thirty-three. The Leonids they were caUed. God how the stars did feU. I looked for blackness, holes m the heavens. The Dipper stove" (Blood 3). Embarking on his westward joumey at the age of fourteen, the youth leaves his drunken fether and an unknown sister, his mother having died at his bkth, m his mqx)verished rural Tennessee home. He finds work on the boats along the Mississippi River from St.Louis to New

Orleans and eventuaUy makes his way to Nacogdoches, RepubUc of Fredonia, in 1849. It is there that he first witnesses a performance by the judge in an evangeUst's tent. Though they do not exchange any dialogue at that tune, the judge pays for the kid's drink m a preview of theh final encounter at the saloon m Cjriffin, Texas, and bestows the first of his enigmatic smiles upon the kid on his way out of town. "As the kid rode past the judge turned and watched him. He tumed the horse, as if he'd have the animal watch too. When the kid looked back the judge smiled" (Blood 14).

20 Ostensibly searching for work, the kid makes his way to Bexar, Texas, present-day

San Antonio, where he uses the fighting skills he acquhed along the riverfront.Th e ferocity ofthe kid's fightmg m one barroom brawl estabUshes his reputation for violence, pronq)tmg a miUtary recruher to seek hhn out.

Was you the feUer knocked m that Mexer's head yesterday evening? I amt the law. Who wants to know? Captam White. He wants to sign that feUer up to join the army...We gom to whip up on the Mexicans. (Blood 29)

Promised clothing, a horse and ammunition, the kid seizes the opportunity to serve with the group of forty-six men who consider themselves "mstruments of Uberation in a dark and troubled land" (Blood 34) and rideswit h them across the Rio Cjrande into northem

Mexico.

Once m that troubled land, however, the Uberators meet with trouble of their own in the form of a bmtal massacre by Apaches who leave only the kid and eight other members of Captain Whhe's troop aUve. After wandering for some time in the Coahuila desert, the kid eventuaUy findshimsel f a prisoner in Chihuahua where he renews an acquaintance with another inmate, Toadvine, with whom he had consphed in an act of violence m Nacogdoches. Together they arrange to jom a group of scalphunters; in theh midst the kid agam notices the judge, who bestows upon him another of his smiles. The narrator describes the ommous appearance ofthe group.

...they saw one day a pack of viciouslooking humans... armed with weapons of every description, revolvers of enormous weight and bowieknives the size of claymores and short twobarreled rifles whh bores you could stick your thumbs m and the trappmgs of theh horses feshioned out of human skin and their bridles woven up from

21 human hair and decorated whh human teeth and the riders wearing scapulars or necklaces of dried and blackened human ears...the whole Uke a visitation from some heathen land where they and others Uke them fed on human flesh. (Blood 78)

As a member of John Joel Glanton's band of scalphimters, the kid witnesses heinous acts of violence in Mexico and the American west cubninating in the massacre at the Yuma ferry on the Colorado River. Survivmg this massacre, which clauns the Uves of

Glanton and most of his band, the kid finds himself confronted by the judge and his imbecUic con^anion. Despite the judge's threatening demands for suppUes and Tobin's exhortations to kiU the judge, the kid chooses not to shoot; instead, he escapes to the west coast where he works for the next several years. In the course of his work up and down the coast he hears of the judge but never encounters him. Unable to estabUsh a settled life for himself^ the kid eventuaUy agrees to escort a party of pUgrims east and begins the joumey back across the plains. There in the midst ofthe joumey, in an unexplained decision he abandons the pUgrims and heads east alone. This last joumey by the kid ends m the frontiertow n of GrrifBn, Texas, a town widely known for the lawlessness and bawdy behavior ofthe bufl^o hunters and other frontiersmen passmg through h. In Griffin occurs the uhimate violence between the judge and the kid in the jakes behind the saloon.

McCarthy's mmimal description ofthe setting, remarks by three ofthe patrons wanting to use the jakes, leaves the reader recoiUng m his knagination ofthe horror of this last confrontation.

Is there somebody m there? I wouldnt go iiL He hitched himself up and buttoned his trousers and stepped past them and went up the waUc toward the Ughts. The first

22 man watched hhn go and then opened the door ofthe jakes. Good God ahnighty, he said. What is h? He didnt answer. He stepped past the other and went back up the walk. The other man stood looking after him. Then he opened the door and looked m. (Blood 334)

Although Blood Meridian describes a community of violence and hs perpetrators, a study ofthe judge reveals an array of other characteristics commonly found m the older cultures of Europe. These stereotypicaUy European characteristics combme with the

specter of death from violence to describe the possessor of these traits, the judge, as a figure very shnilar to the leader in the Medieval art form known as the Dance of Death.

Therefore, I wiU argue that through these strong European ties the judge represents the older cultures as they influence in the undeveloped frontier of America.

The Dance of Death emerges as a European art form ofthe late Medieval Period.

James M. Clark explains its formal representation in Uterature and in art.

...a procession of mortals, arranged in hierarchical order, filedpas t Death, who summoned each m turn to jom the dance. The aUegorical meaning ofthe pictures and poems that represent this idea is perfectly clear: the power of Death and the equality of aU men before him is expressed in unequivocal language...a dialogue between mortals and Death, ^^h sardonic humour the skeleton mocks his victim, reminding him of his sins on earth and summoning him to the grave. (Clark 7-8)

Fhst appearing m fourteenth century Cjermany, the earUest representations consisted of dialogues, performed by reUgious orders, between Death and various of his foUowers.

"Death is made grotesque and a sort of'horrid Harlequm,' a skeleton dancer or musician playmg for dancmg, leadmg aU mankind" (Bamhart 305). Appearances ofthe Dance of

Death occur in various forms throughout Medieval and Renaissance France, Germany,

23 Italy and England. Sir Thomas More describes the con^assion he feh upon viewing

Dance of Death pictures at the Cathedral of St. Paul m London (Qsbome 299). Because of the grotesque nature ofthe Death figure, this art form experienced a resurgence m popularity m the nineteenth century's interest in the macabre. In the twentieth century

W.H. Auden used the form as the thle and theme for his satirical drama The Dance of

Death. 1933.

Given hs widespread popularity throughout the European countries and hs recurrence m various historical periods, the Dance of Death provides a logical metaphor for the older cultures. Since no rigidly standardized form for the figures appears to have developed in the artistic representations, McCarthy presents the judge and his foUowers according to the thematic demands of Rlood Meridian. The association of violence with death develops a ubiquhous texture m the novel, but h specifically describes the nature of the judge more than any other character. EasUy identified as a figure of death, the judge's actions produce muhitudinous horrors with resuhing deaths, and the influence of his violence pervades the American culture m which he Uves.

Just as the leader ofthe Dance of Death affects aU mankind, aduhs and chUdren aUke, so too does the judge's violence extend to aU types of humanity. Mexicans witness the horror resuhing fromhi s actions in a Nacori cantma where the judge demonstrates his skills upon one ofthe natives. A particularly personal, ahnost mtimate, relationship often appears between the judge and his victun. In this case the judge atten^ts to communicate whh hhn through a smile.

24 But the judge was Uke a cat and he sidestepped the man and seized his arm and broke h and picked the man up by his head. He put him against the waU and smiled at him but the man had begun to bleed fromth e ears and the blood was running down between the judge's fingersan d over his hands and when the judge tumed him loose there was something wrong with his head and he sUd to the floor and did not get up. (Blood 179)

A particular poignancy characterizes the judge's violence perpetrated on chUdren.

Often establishmg a personal relationship with them, his inhial attentions ahnost describe a grandfetherly care for the children; however, the care becomes unusuaUy attentive and uhimately resuhs m the chUdren's deaths. Ahhough the community of sca^)hunters identifies him with the deaths, they voice only a token expression of condemnation; the leading figure m the Dance of Death plays a role which the violent community accepts.

Taking an Apache chUd whh him, the judge ridesa t the head ofthe scalphunters, "bearing on the saddle before him a strange dark chUd covered whh ash. Part of its hah was bumed away and it rode mute and stoic" (Blood 160). Three days later the men see the judge m another personal scene with the same boy, "dandUng it on one knee" (Blood 164).

One ofthe scalphunters, Toadvine, evaluates the judge's actions realisticaUy and registers a mild accusation, but he does not wm m his chaUenge to the figure of Death.

Toadvine saw him with the chUd as he passed whh his saddle but when he came back ten mmutes later leading his horse the chUd was dead and the judge had scalped it. Toadvine put the muzzle of his pistol agamst the great dome of the judge's head. Goddamn you, Holden. You either shoot or take that away. Do h now. Toadvine put the pistol in his beh. The judge smiled and wiped the scalp on the leg of his trousers and rose and tumed away. (Blood 164)

25 Possessmg extraordinary characteristics in his commission of such heinous acts of violence, the judge also presents an extraordmary physical appearance. As the Medieval

Dancer of Death appears as a skeleton, so too does the figureo f Death m Blood Meridian present an unusual physical appearance. The narrator's first description ofthe judge, as he enters the evangeUst's tent m Nacogdoches, mdicates that his appearance eUchs attention

"An enormous man dressed m an oUcloth sUcker had entered the tent and removed his hat.

He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of beard and he had no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them. He was close on to seven feet m height" (Blood 6). Later, Tobm, one of the scalphunters, comments on his weight and the absence of body hair: 'T had never seen a grown man with not a hair to his body and him weighin twenty-four stone which he did then and does now" (Blood 128). These quaUties of hairlessness and immensity support the descrq)tion of him at the baths m Chihuahua.

He shone like the moon so pale he was and not a hair to be seen anywhere upon that vast corpus, not m any crevice nor m the great bores of his nose and not upon his chest nor m his ears nor any tuft at aU above his eyes nor to the Uds thereof ..he looked about with considerable pleasure, the eyes sUghtly crinkled, as if he were smiling under the water Uke some pale and bloated manatee surfeced m a bog. (Blood 167)

Also described as "a great ponderous djhm" and "an enormous mfent" (Blood 96,

335), the judge m the immensity of his grotesque appearance contrasts decidedly with the skeletal European figure m the Dance of Death. The enormity of McCarthy's Death figure extends to the extremhies of his violence, his education, inteUigence and the skills associated with civilization which he possesses. His enormous size suggests that he is capable of consuming the hope for a new beginning represented by the American frontier.

26 However, McCarthy retams a suggestion ofthe European skeleton through his association of Judge Holden with bones, the visual remmder of death. To develop this association, the author estabUshes a deification of rocks as generic bones m "an extenqx)rary lecture" which the judge deUvers to an assembly of scalphimters:

And these are his [God's] words. He held up a chunk of rock.

He speaks m stones and trees, the bones of thmgs. (Blood 116)

The judge's relation to rocks assumes a metaphysical quality m the description by Tobm, the "expriest," ofthe scalphunter's first encounter with the judge. There he set on a rock m the middle ofthe greatest desert you'd ever want to see. Just perched on this rock Uke a man waitin for a coach. Brown thought hhn a mhage...about the meridian of that day we come upon the judge on his rock there m that wilderness by his single self. Aye and there was no rock, just the one. Irving said he'd brung it with him. I said that h was a merestone for to mark hhn out of nothmg at all (Blood 124,125)

Tobin relates another significant scene which associates the judge with rock. "His honor takes up a poshion on some lava rocks there and he commences to give us a address. It was like a sermon but it was no such sermon as any man of us had ever heard before"

(Blood 129). However, the judge uses rocks not only as platforms for hhnself but, m one instance, he uses a large stone as an mstrument of violence. "...[T]he judge took up a round rock weighing perhaps a hundred pounds and crushed the horse's skuU with a single blow" (Blood 219). His extraordinary capacity for Uftmg weight appears m another association whh rocks as bones of nature. The judge agrees to demonstrate his ability by

Uftmg a meteorite shaped Uke a bone of some universal entity: "The judge seized that great slag wandered for what miUennia fromwha t unreckonable comer ofthe universe and

27 he raised it overhead and stood tottering and then lunged forward. It cleared the mark by a foot" (Blood 240).

Not Umhed to an association whh rocks, or bones ofthe universe, the judge also demonstrates an extraordmary relationship whh human and annual bones, the first ofthe lehmotife to be addressed m this study. In two separate mstances, an arrangement of bones covers the ground surroimdmg a chUd victim of violence; m both cases, the presence ofthe bones, along with other evidence, pomts to the judge as the murderer.

The judge takes notice of an Apache boy who crouches m the ruins of a presidio and later watches the scalphunters around their campfire. Someone finds him the next mommg

"lymg face down naked in one ofthe cubicles. Scattered about on the clay were great numbers of old bones. As if he like others before him had stumbled upon a place where somethmg mhnical Uved" (Blood 118). The narrator describes a shmlar scene at Carrizo

Creek involving the judge's imbecUic companion: "It was sittmg motionless in a bower of bones with the broken sunUght stencUed over hs vacant fece...and ahhough there was no expression to hs fece yet h seemed a creature beset whh a great woe" (Blood") 291). The specter of Death surrounds both victims whh his calUng card of bones.

When the eeriest, Tobm, feshions a cross from anhnal bones, he trespasses into the hnagery associated whh the judge as the figure of Death. Tobin's offering is a sacrificial design, but the judge cannot accept his association with bones. The kid sees

Tobin "stumbUng among the bones and holding aloft a cross he'd feshionedou t ofthe shins of a ram and he'd lashed them together whh strips of hide and he was holdmg the

28 thmg before hhn Uke some made dowser" (Blood 289-90). The judge must end Tobm's sacrificial offering and his rifle's buUet goes through the scalphunter's neck.

During the kid's final joumey to Griffin, Texas, and his last encoimter whh the judge, the ^pearance of bones and bonepickers suggests the presence ofthe figure of

Death and presages the kid's last experience whh violence. He atten^ts to fend off the aggressive young bonepicker, Ehod, but his fi^less efforts lead hhn to perpetrate some ofthe violence which the young America metaphoricaUy discovers through the influence ofthe older culture. FoUowing the horror ofthe kid and the judge m the jakes behind the saloon, the EpUogue describes a scene of "bones and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather" (Blood 337). In this final smgle page ofthe novel McCarthy does not identify the man by name who makes holes across the plain, but his identification whh the rocks and bones on the prairie establishes his identification as the judge, the figureo f

Death-

Thus, the lehmotif of bones, identified in Chapter I as occurring in the three westem novels of Cormac McCarthy, plays a critical role m Rlood Meridian,

Representative m general of death and ofthe past, this motif of bones also supports my thesis concemmg the judge as representative of European culture and the leadmg figure m the aUegorical Dance of Death. Clark describes one ofthe earUest paintmgs ofthe Dance of Death, found m the Paris Cemetery ofthe Iimocents m the early fifteenthcentury . In this cycle of thirty pictures the figures "formed a long cham or procession, a stately dance ofthe mediaeval type; each Uvmg person had his dead partner, who led hhn by the hand"

(7). The judge leads this aUegorical procession of those Uving who gather bones and those

29 dead who do not gather bones. In Hans Holbem's coUection of artistic representations of the Dance of Death, "regarded as one ofthe greatest achievements m the sphere of wood engravmg" (Clark n.p.), the woodcutting of a judge reveals a cormpt judicial figurewh h the skeleton above his right shoulder, breakmg his stafi^ the symbol of his office. In Blood

Meridian McCarthy gives his judge a broken cross as his staff; he describes it as "an implement whh two handles" (337). Thus, the m^lement's appearance as a broken cross relates the judge to his own violence and denial ofthe resurrection promised to those predestmed, in the terms of Calvin, for salvation. However, another reading of the staff whh two handles notes its similarity to Neptune's trident, "an attribute ofthe god ofthe imconscious and of sin—Neptune, whose reahn is the haimt of monsters and base forms of

Ufe" (CMot 351). The symbolism associating the judge's staff whh Neptune recalls the narrator's description ofthe scalphunters as "gorgons shambling the bmtal wastes of

Gondwanaland m a tune before nomenclature was and each was aU" (Blood 172). More even than any ofthe other scalphunters, the judge represents a figure from such prehistoric tunes. In this novel the motif of bones serves to identify the judge as the figure of Death, thus linking him whh the older European cultures and whh the violence resulting from theh influence in America.

Identification of the judge as the figure of Death and representative of a European mfluence on the American frontierdoe s not rest solely on his association with rocks and bones and whh the grotesque nature of his character. The Medievalists often pictured

Death as a dancer or musician leadmg his victuns m a procession. In Blood Meridian

McCarthy describes the band of scalphunters on theh way across the westem frontier,

30 witnessmg aU the while the judge's weU-developed skills in dance and music. Tobm describes his general aptitude for the arts. "That great hahless thmg. You wouldnt think to look at him that he could outdance the devU hhnself now would ye? God the man is a dancer, you'U not take that away from hhn. And fiddle. He's the greatest fiddler I ever heard and that's an end on it. The greatest" (Blood 123). An exhibition ofthe judge's dancmg to the tune of a Mexican fiddler m "the old stone town of Jesus Maria" pomtedly relates the judge and his art to an older culture. Through the fiddler's "air that was old among the mountebanks of Spain two hundred years before...he and the fiddler seemed aUen minstrels met by chance in this medieval town...he phouetted hugely on his mincmg feet" (Blood 190). Various other scenes occur m the novel describmg the judge and his dancing, but none bears significance as much as does the dance in the final scene in the

CjtifBn saloon. There the judge acknowledges the kid's arrival for the ritual: "You're here for the dance, he said" (Blood 327). This dance vdU be the kid's confrontation with death.

Just as in the various presentations ofthe Dance of Death, the skeleton, as Death, confronts the people one by one at theh death, so too the judge confronts the kid whh a dance. Describing the dance as a ceremony, a ritual, the judge declares that the ritual mandates a show of blood or death. "A ritual mcludes the lettmg of blood. Rituals which feil m this reqmrement are but mock rituals" (Blood 329). FoUowmg the ritual, the figure of Death dances on alone. Just as death contmues forever, so too the judge declares that he "never sleeps...he wUl never die" (Blood 335).

The judge m Blood Meridian also resembles ancient figures of Death with his smUe. Just as the skeletal grin is a permanent feature ofthe Medieval hnage, smiles often

31 appear in descr^tions ofthe judge, suggesting an enigmatic quaUty in him. John Sepich in

Notes on Blood Meridian recognizes the significance of this characteristic. "...McCarthy's own pencU has boldly imderscored hs m^rtance whh sustained attention to this detaU"

(160). Frequently, the judge dhects his smUes at the kid, estabUshmg a personal relationship of some pleasure to the judge. The Medieval skeleton's snule mq)Ues that he takes pleasure m his occupation, and throughout this saga of violence the judge never reveals any dismay at the havoc and destmction he wreaks. As he prepares for the final dance, his appearance assumes a quaUty closer to that of his skeletal ancestor's toothsome grin. "He smUed, his great teeth shone" (Blood 329). Heightening his e3q)ression of pleasure, the judge no longer singly smUes in the final scene but turns to an even more mtense experience as he "laughs deep m his throat" (Blood 335).

Medieval representations ofthe Dance of Death show a coUection of people from different strata of society who form a procession accon:q)anying the figure of Death. In

JMcK}^ M^ri<;li^n Cormac McCarthy provides the judge with a wide assortment of comrades, includmg former clerical, medical, and miUtary personnel, a convicted felon and a foreigner, who is also a convict, as they ride across the American frontier. The judge describes one member ofthe group, Tobin, as "a respected Doctor of Divinity from

Harvard CoUege as recently as March of this year. That his wits had stood him as fer west as the Aquarium Mountains. It was the ensuing country that carried them off. Together with his clothes" (Blood 306). Among the members ofthe judge's disparate group, Tobm has the longest tenure whUe Dr. Lmcohi, the representative fromth e medical profession, has the briefest. The judge encounters the doctor at Yuma where Lmcohi has buih a

32 profitable business running a ferry, the only mode of transportation at that pomt, across the Colorado River. John Joel Glanton, based on a historical mUitary figure fromth e ranks ofthe Texas Rangers and veterans ofthe Mexican War, flmctions m the novel as the head ofthe scalphunters and possessor of a contract with Angel Trias for the head of

Gomez. However, both Glanton and Lincoln meet theh death m the violence ofthe Yuma massacre. Several ofthe judge's comrades have significant experience in violence before joming his procession. Toadvine, whom the kid meets m Nacogdoches, bears the brand of a felon. "On his forehead were bumed the letters H T and lower and almost between the eyes the letter F and these markings were splayed and garish as if the hon had been left too long" (Blood 11). Another convict, Bathcat, was originally fromWale s but "had come west on legbail..he had but three fingers to his right hand and few teeth" (Blood

86). Decidedly different m theh experiences and social strata, this group demonstrates an admhation of the judge's skills and joins in his hemous violence on the American frontier.

Supportive of my thesis that the judge represents the European mfluence on the undeveloped American frontier and the perpetration of violence there, certain characteristics associated most commonly whh people of older European cultures attend the judge. In keeping with the judge's extraordmary abUities in many areas, he also demonstrates exceptional Unguhstic skills, a quaUty more often found m European cultures than m that ofthe American frontier.Tob m describes the judge's unpressive skUls to the kid: "He's been aU over the world. Him and the governor they sat up tUl breakfest and it was Paris this and London that m five languages, you'd have give somethmg to of heard them. Thegovemor'saleamedmanhhnselfheis, but the judge..." (ElQQii 123). Tobm

33 reveals his own experience, through his theological studies, in a classical education for he recognizes the mscription on the judge's gun. Ft |p Arcadia Ego, and comments: "His is the firstan d only ever I seen whh an mscription fromth e classics" (Blood 125). In addhion to having a Latin inscription on his gun, the judge translates Latin as he discusses points of law with the Ueutenant m Tucson. "He ched cases civU and martial He quoted

Coke and Blackstone, Anaxknander, Thales" (Blood 239). SkiUed also m rhetorical styles, the judge appears outside during an electrical storm "declaiming m the old epic mode" (Blood 118). The judge's virtuosity extends even to matters of mtemational diplomacy. Invited to dine whh the governor of Sonora, Angel Trias, Glanton's band turns the occasion into a dmnken debacle, but not before the judge shs as the govemor's honored guest. Trias "had him seated at his right and they at once feU into conversation m a tongue none other in that room spoke at aU saving for random vUe ephhets drifted down from the north" (Blood 169). This aggregate of characteristics found in the judge presents him as a vaUd representative ofthe European cultures and theh values which result m violence on the American frontier.

StUI another aspect ofthe judge's character links him with the older cultures; when he raises questions regarding fete, he delves mto an area addressed by the European-based theology of John (Dalvin. McCarthy suggests the Calvinist concept of origmal shi when he describes the kid's childhood. "He can neither read nor write and m him broods aheady a taste for mindless violence. AU history present m that visage, the chUd the father ofthe man" (Blood 3). Because of his own hinate propensity for evil, the kid does not chaUenge the violence of the judge; with an hmer presence of violence aheady resident m the young

34 American nation, it is powerless to prevent the penetration of hs frontier societies by the violent influences ofthe older cultures. The determination of who wiU be saved fromhi s own hmate evU rests whh the unrelentmg God ofthe Pmitans. In RIQQH Meridian

McCarthy poshions aU the discussions about fete and order, the second ofthe leitmotife, squarely withm the concepts ofthe Calvmist doctrine of predestmation It places the fete ofthe aborigines in some higher power, and the scalphunters simply enact the decision "as if the fete ofthe aborigines had been cast into shape by some other agency ahogether. As if such destinies were prefigured m the very rock for those with eyes to read" (Blood 173).

A phUosophy of predestination emerges as the judge insists that the order which men see is only the order which they have laid out; a higher order controls all 'Tor existence has hs own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a feet among others" (Blood 245). Discussing moral law as an mvention of man, the judge outlines for

Tobm the Calvinist doctrine ofthe elect.

...however much he comes to value his judgements uhimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral rightrendere d void and whhout warrant and here are the views ofthe Utigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shaU be and what shaU not, beggar aU question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are aU lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural (Blood 250)

In the CjriflSn saloon the judge again seeks to explam fete, this tune to the kid, who seems unclear why he has come to that place. Notmg that some ofthe other men don't know why they have come there either, the judge reasons: "They do not have to have a reason.

But order is not set aside because of theh indifference...If h is so that they themselves

35 have no reason and yet are mdeed here must they not be here by reason of some other?"

(ElOfid 328) Pressed for an identity ofthe controUing force, the judge confesses to knowing him weU; by the tune of this novel Europe had experienced nearly three-hundred years of Calvmism.

As discussed m Chapter I, the lehmotif of order appears in each ofthe three westem novels. In Blood Meridian the judge speaks ofthe mevitabUity of fete's control of the predetermined order ofthe universe. Originating in Europe, the theology of Calvin came to America whh the Puritans, and hs teachings spread throughout the young nation from coast to coast. Despite the dynamic potential offered for development on the westem frontier,Americ a reflects the influence of European pessimism. Attributing this pesshnism to "the ineradicable Calvmism in our nature and the moral steriUty of our undiscipUned material and polhical growth," Rod W. Horton and Herbert W. Edwards maintain that "Calvinism presented a conception of man's existence that heavUy stressed the weakness of humanity against the predestmed forces ofthe universe" (260), a phUosophy also found in the theories of Naturalism. Cormac McCarthy explores the role played by this European theology as it defines fete's role m the order ofthe universe and as h occupies the attention of the judge m several passages in Blood Merid^at]

McCarthy raises the issue of European influence in America through a reflective comment made by the judge m the CjriflBn saloon: "And some are not yet bom who shaU have cause to curse the Dauphm's soul, said the judge. He tumed sUghtly. Plenty of tune for the dance" (Ekfid 327 ). Whh no estabUshed character m Blood Meridian known as the Dauphin and given the relationshq) which this thesis develops between the judge,

36 representmg European mfluences, and the kid, viewed as the young America, this reference to the Dauphm might recaU the Shakespearian play Henry V . In this play Henry seeks to recover French lands which he beUeves belong to him through an order of primogeniture, a hint of one ofthe themes found m AU the Pretty Horses. The French, however, respond with an msuh fromth e Dauphin to Henry V which precipitates a bmtal war. In Henry V the British king muses on the insuh and the impendmg war which he wiU wage agamst France m words remarkably shnilar to those echoed by the judge m the

Griffin saloon.

And some are yet ungotten and unborn

That shaU have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn (1.2.287-288)

Henry's defeat of France leads to a period of great power for England; often considered a moraUy unscmpulous acquisition of power, the war was launched on spurious foundations developed by the Machiavellian Henry. By mcorporatmg this reference m the context of the dance which the judge wiU continue forever, McCarthy suggests that the violence of the European influence wUl be feh m America for a long thne.

Throughout the novel, the judge functions m a polar relationship whh the kid. In the anonymity resuhmg froma n absence of a personal name and femUyties , the kid holds aU the potential for hope and development that the undeveloped American frontierholds ; however, he too feels the violence ofthe judge and the older European cuhure. The Tarot cards, which the juggler reads, trace back to a European origin, and the acceptance of supematuraUsm and the concept of fete, which is mherent m them, relate to the European theology of Calvinism Recognizmg the unrest suggested by the readmg of his card, the

37 Four of Cups, the kid understands that he can only find a solution by making the choice between leaving the band of scalphunters and continumg whh them. His decision to remam with the group estabUshes his aflSnity whh them and affects his later actions.

Ahhough the group no tonger fimctk)ns and the kki Uves atone in CaUfomia, his earUer choice to associate with the scaljfemters eventually exerts a force whkh dhects hhn to

Griffin and to his final encounter whh the judge.

In Blood Meridian Cormac McC!arthy introduces two striking images ofthe leitmotif of horses; seeing them as representatives of the older European society and the younger, undeveloped America, he twice presents a mature horse standmg beside a younger one. The firstoccur s after the scalphunters experience a scene of hemous violence in theh discovery of eight decapitated heads, each wearing a hat and positioned m a chcle. Fmdmg shelter in a bam, the scalphunters realize that a mare and a coh also share theh quarters. The men recognize themselves in the relationship ofthe coh to its guardian and leader and msist that the stable boy leave the horses there (Blood 222). A turbulent sea provides the stage for the second image of a horse and coh on a beach outside of San

Diego. The kid notices unmoving, watchflil attitude ofthe horse whUe the colt "cavorted and trotted off and came back" (Blood 304) and realizes that his own turbulent Ufe may result m a fete-mandated retum to the waitmg judge. In the context ofthe violent sea, an ominous quality of foreboding appears. "The horse stood darkly against the sky. The surf boomed m the dark and the sea's black hide heaved m the cobbled starUght" (Blood 304).

In the darkness ofthe hnagery relationship ofthe two horses foretells the darkness ofthe final mteraction between the judge and the kid. Fimctionmg as a leitmotif which runs

38 throughout the three westem novels, the use ofthe horse as a symbol enriches the readmg of these two passages. The metaphysical aspect ofthe horse suggests a relation to the metaphysical aspects ofthe judge as a figureo f Death. J.E.Chlot writes of this aspect of the horse as "an anhnal associated whh burial-rites m chthonian cuhs" (152). He fiirther suggests an association ofthe horse with violence m noting hs Unk whh the god of war. It

"was also dedicated to Mars, and the sudden appearance of a horse was thought to be an omen of war" (152). The kid first acquhes a horse when he joins the U.S. Army Company under the command of Captain Whhe, his firstassociatio n with organized and legalized violence. McCarthy even extends the association of violence and the horse. As Glanton speaks to the mounted Chiricahuan warriors, his horse "leaned forward and seized the man's horse by the ear. Blood flew. The horse screamed and reared" (Blood 228-29V

The judge rides forward to mediate the fracas, thereby exerting his own control over the emption of violence. However, whh this demonstration of violence m the horse McCarthy sets the stage for a stiU more dhect identity of violence vnth horses m AU the Pretty

Horses.

Presenting the Dance of Death, the judge spreads his influence of terror and violence as the procession of scalphunters makes it way across the frontiers and meridians ofthe American west. Possessmg quaUties associated with the older European cultures, as weU as those ofthe figure of Death, the judge represents European mterests as they influence the development of America. The kid, m his passive acceptance ofthe judge and his European violence, represents the American nation in the mid-nineteenth century as it sought to grow into a civilized country but found itself under the pervasive forces of an

39 older cuhure. As if controUed by the fete which the judge describes m such detaU, the kid must fece degradation and horror m the jakes behind the saloon, just as America must fece the destruction of hs native culture by the introduction ofthe European presence on the frontier.

40 CHAPTER m

THE KNIGHT, THE QUEEN, AND THE BILLIARDS PLAYER

IN ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

You cannot play at chess if you are kind-hearted. (Chemev 278)

In AU the Pretty Horses. Volume fhie. The Border Trilogy Cormac McCarthy explores the chaUenge to the natural order of a culture, addressing the order found m femilial mheritance, genealogy of horses and cultural tradition. McCarthy's interest m femily heritage emerges in John Grady Cole who, disenfranchised from the ranching heritage of his femUy,venture s deeply into Mexican culture with two other young

American boys only to findther e an amalgam of many foreign influences m a reservoh of violence. The violence engulfe John Cjrady as he chaUenges the tradhions of Mexican cuhure, eventuaUy sending him back to his homeland to face alone the darkness and desolation he finds there. My thesis looks at McCarthy's characterization of John Cjrady as representative of long-standing American in^)eriaUstic efforts m Mexico; however, the violence m Mexican society, hself developed from many other cultures, rejects his atten^ts, forcmg a retum to the Unhed States where he must acknowledge the desolation left there by the destmction of order. McCarthy presents the American's formal chaUenge to Mexican cuhure through encoimters with Don Hector Rocha y VUlareal, owner ofthe

Hacienda de Nuestra Senora de la Purishna Concepcion, and the Duena Alfonsa, paradigm of Mexican tradhion and puppet of her nephew, Rocha; m the context of chess matches between Alfonsa and John CJrady, and a game of bUliards, matching Rocha and John

41 Cjrady, the author uses the metaphor ofthe games and theh pieces to develop the themes of violence resulthig fromth e dismption of order.

In summarizmg AU the Pretty Horses I note early mtroduction ofthe hnage emphasizing the order of mheritance which has been broken with the death ofthe protagonist's grandfether Cjrady: the reflection m the grandfether's pierglass of John

Grady acconq)anied by portraits of his forebears on the walls behind him. Mourning his grandfether's death and the mpending dissolution of his femUy's ranch, John Ckady rode out to a fevorite place on the land that had been his home, to remember other cultures who had also known that area but now were gone. Thinking about theh "transhory and violent Uves...He rode out to the crest of a low rise and dismounted and dropped the rems and walked out and stood like a man come to the end of something" (Horses 5). In fact, it is the end of his association with the ranch and whh members ofthe Grady femUy as well

His mother's decision to seU the ranch ends the line of primogeniture, motivating him to join his friend, Lacey RawUns, and ridet o Mexico. Preparing to cross the Rio Grande

River into Mexico, John Grrady and RawUns find that another yovmg man has jomed them.

This new associate, Jhmny Blevms, with spurious name, age and origm, possesses physicaUy, if not legally, a magnificent horse, but also reveals from the outset certam trahs which associate him whh violence.

One of Jimmy's characteristics mhiates a string of events that eventuaUy lead to his death. A deep-seated fear of Ughtnmg overcomes hhn during a storm: 'T done been struck twice how come me to be deaf m this one ear. I'm double bred for death by fire. You got to get away fromanythm g metal at aU. You dont know what'U get you"

42 (Horses 68). This fear pron^ts irrational behavior at the threat of lightning and results m the loss of both horse and clothmg. However, Blevins and the Texas boys ride double on the two remaining horses untU they discover Blevms' horse m the pueblo of Encantado.

The disturbance caused by theh attempt to retrieve the horse makes h necessary for John

Cjrady and Rawlins to separate from Jimmy who beUeves he can outride his pursuers on his fester horse. By hidmg for some hours, John Grady and RawUns manage to elude the riders and continue on without Blevins in theh search for work

Findmg an opportunity to work whh horses at an old hacienda, John Cjrady and

RawUns begin theh association whh Mexican culture and the Rocha femUy.Th e Texans work together as they perform the daily chores requhed of ranch hands, but John Grady develops a closer relationship whh Rocha through his knowledge of horses and the genealogy of outstanding breeds. This camaraderie between en^loyer and employee aUows him to enjoy the privUege of ridingon e ofthe prized horses. John Grady also assumes a privUege not often granted to a ranch hand in his romance with Alejandra,

Rocha's daughter. However, this afi^ has no parental approval and, shortly after a discussion ofthe aflfeh with Alejandra's grand-aunt, the Duena Alfonsa, Mexican guards come to the hacienda to take John Grady and RawUns as prisoners and retum them to the pueblo of Encantado, where they mitiaUy separated from Jhnmy Blevms.

At Encantado the Texans jom Blevms and other prisoners for a tmck ride to the prison m SahUlo; however, guards mtermpt the ridet o take Blevms out and shoot hhn.

During theh mcarceration at SaltUlo, John Cjrady and RawUns e5q)erience the violence of

Mexican prison culture, but Alfonsa secures theh release with a thnely monetary donation

43 to appropriate prison authorities. Although RawUns takes his share of her money and returns to Texas, his partner attempts to contmue the romance whh Alejandra through one more meetmg m Zacatecas where he finaUy understands that the relationship cannot contmue. Theh separation clarifies John Cjrady's poshion, motivatmg hhn to retrieve his horse, Redbo, and set out for Texas. Fmdmg Redbo, along with the horses belongmg to

RawUns and Jimmy, stabled at Encantado, John Cjrady must confront the officials there to get the horses. In the ensumg violence he takes as hostage the captain, who had previously ordered Jhnmy's death, and sets off north towards the United States.

Once back across the border, John Grady seeks unsuccessfiiUy to findth e original owner of Jhnmy's horse; mstead, he emerges from Ihigation brought against him as the new legal ovmer ofthe big bay. Contmumg his effort to retum the horses to theh rightfiil owners, he rideso n to RawUns' home to deUver his horse. Junior, and to offer him

Jimmy's horse also. After Rawlins refiises his offer, John Ghady makes a stop at the femUy ranch to attend his abuela's funeral. The novel concludes with the hnage of John

Cjrady riding alone onto a red desert m a land unknown to him.

I introduce order hi Chapter I as a leitmotif occurring in the three westem novels by Cormac McCarthy, but m the two pubUshed volumes of The Border Trilogy order assumes a thematic dhnension also. The Oxford EngUsh Dictionary defines order as:

"Sequence, disposhion, arrangement, arranged or regulated condhioiL..13.b. In wider sense: The condhion m which everything is in hs proper place, and performs its proper fimctions" (10: 904). My thesis addresses violation m the control of sequences established in the issues of primogeniture involving John Cjrady's femUy,th e genealogy of

44 the horses in Rocha's breedmg program, and the order and control exerted m the Mexican culture of Rocha's femUy. An examination of these three areas of violation reveals that each leads to violence, symboUzed m the chess and bUUards games. The loss of control, evidenced by a dismption of order, permits an accon:q)anying development of violence.

Alfonsa bases her opposhion to John Cjrady's romance with her grand-niece on his lack of control, chastismg hhn for the violence he has experienced:

I know your case. Your case is that certain things happened over which you had no control It's tme. I'm sure it is. But h's no case. I've no synq)athy with people to whom thmgs happen It may be that theh luck is bad, but is that to count m theh fevor? (Horses 240)

Even though control is beyond John Cjrady's capabUhy, Alfonsa does not accept the notion of fate and explains her beUef to him:

Yes. We'U see what fate has in store for us, wont we? I thought you didnt beUeve m fate. She waved her hand. It's not so much that I dont beUeve in h. I dont subscribe to hs nomination If fete is the law then is fete also subject to that law? At some pomt we cannot escape naming responsibiUty. It's m our nature. (Horses 241).

In another passage Alfonsa elaborates stiU more on the loss of control, Ukening h to the poshion of a puppet. The puppet does not mitiate an action, but serves only as an agent in hs implementation This breakdown then m the order of mitiation and in^lementation only resuhs in violence.

For me the world has always been more of a puppet show. But when one looks behind the curtain and traces the strings upward he finds they termmate m the hands of yet other puppets, themselves whh theh own strings which trace upward m turn, and so on In

45 my own life I saw these strings whose origins were endless enact the deaths of great men m violence and madness. (Horses 231)

Rocha also speaks ofthe natural order of development m the matter ofthe marriage which was denied to Alfonsa as a young woman: "She should have been left to make her own choice and she was not and whatever were the chcumstances she seems to have been very unforgiving of her fether and h was a great sorrow to hhn and the one that he was buried with" (Horses 145). Cormac McCarthy describes violence m AU the Pretty Horses as it results from a destmction of order and as it appears m the areas of John Grady's heritage, the horses' genealogy and the Mexican culture.

McCarthy fiirther explores the motif of order through an issue of primogeniture early m the novel; he associates the breakdown of John Cjrady's ranching heritage whh the cultures of Indians who no longer inhabh the plains. Four generations of Cjrady's caUed the ranch "home"; John Cjrady's grandfether viewed the land as a sacred trust: "he married and brought his bride home to the ranch and he must have waUced out and stood looking at his holdings and reflected long upon the ways of God and the laws of primogeniture"

(Horses 7). However, John Cjrady's mother decides she must seU the ranch for financial reasons despite her son's atten^ts to stop her. He sees the dissolution ofthe ranch as the beghining ofthe same pUght that befeU the various tribes in theh earUer civiUzation. As the boy stands out on the old Comanche road, he hnagmes theh lost nation ridmg before him, "each armed for war which was theh Ufe...pledged m blood and redeemable in blood only" (Horses 5). The violence ofthe Native Americans emerges through this description

46 as a resuh of theh removal from ancestral lands and the destmction ofthe order m theh

Uves.

Another exaiople ofthe order motif appearing through primogeniture occurs also with Junmy Blevins who harbors numerous signs of a previous association with violence.

A skUled shooter, he reportedly kUls three men m Encantado (Horses 159). Jhnmy's heritage, however, relates to a violence in the weather; his greatest fear comes from a femilial history of being stmck by Ughtnmg. The young boy eventually meets his death, not from lightning, but in the violence ofthe Mexican guard's gun

John Cjrady represents American attempts to secure land m Mexico and disguises his imperialistic tendencies beneath his search for enq)loyment. Hearing of a potential job,

John Cjrady describes the place to Rawlins as "some big ranches yon side ofthe Sierra del

Carmen^;f^e made that country sound like the Big Rock Candy Mountains" (Horses 55).

However, he also suggests to his fiiendtha t he has more than a potential enqjloyee's interest in h:

You cant teU what's m a country Uke that tiU you're down there m h, he said. There's damn sure a bunch of h, amt there. John Cjrady nodded. That's what I'm here for. (Horses 59^

Discovering the possibUity for acquishion of property through marriage to the hacendado's daughter, John Grady confesses his long range goal to his fiiend.

I do have eyes for the daughter. You got eyes for the spread? John Cjrady studied the fire. I dont know, he said. I amt thought about h. Sure you aint, said Rawlins.

47 He looked at RawUns and he looked mto the fire agam. (Horses 137-38)

Smce John Cjrady cannot mherit a ranch, he looks to his own fether'sexampl e of acquiring it through marriage, and the daughter ofthe Rocha femUyoffer s that possibUhy for hhn

The Rocha fanuly represents that segment of Mexican culture which received hs considerable property holdmgs by legislation and has Uved on the land ever since, for almost two hundred years m this case. McCarthy enphasizes the Rocha femUyheritag e with ancestral photographs, as he did with photos of John Grady's forebears. In the parlor the patriarch ofthe femily appears m Toledo, Spain, m a 1797 oi^ainting, along whh more recent photos ofthe femily members taken m Europe. A photo of Alfonsa's brother reveals stereotypical Spanish characteristics: "His dark moustache. Dark Spanish eyes.

The stance of a grandee" (Horses 132).

However, foreign influences have invaded the purity ofthe Rocha's Spanish lineage and reveal theh presence in McCarthy's description of Alejandra. He addresses only a few of her physical characteristics but shows in her eyes that the Uneage was broken. This violation of order m the Rocha femUy so startles John Cjrady that he forgets his mtent to talk with her. "She passed five feet away and tumed her fineboned fece and looked fuU at him. She had blue eyes and she nodded or perhaps she only lowered her head sUghtly to better see what sort of horse he rode...He'd half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever m the space of a heartbeat" (Horses 109). Other foreign mfluences also contribute to this break m the Rocha's Spanish heritage. Changed by her education m France, Alfonsa returns to her femflywit h the revolutionary ideas of

48 her schoohnates, Gustavo and Francisco Madero. Rocha speaks with disdam of this

French mfluence.

Like Madero she was educated m Europe. Like hhn she also learned these ideas...I dont beUeve that people can be hnproved m theh character by reason. That seems a very french idea...there is no greater monster than reason..That of course is the Spanish idea. You see. The ideaof Qukote. But even Cervantes could not envision such a country as Mexico. (Horses 145, 146)

Not only do foreign ideas and blue eyes hivade the Rocha femUy,bu t foreign customs and speech patterns appear also. Alfonsa speaks "with an engUsh accent" and serves a typicaUy EngUsh tray which mcludes tea and cream, cake, and crackers with cheese. The

"brown sauce" on the tray describes a sweet Mexican sauce known as cajete which is often served with crackers (Horses 134). Rocha also reveals a foreign mfluence m his speech through the use of a typicaUy EngUsh expletive: "The bloody French are quhe exceUent on the subject of horses" (Horses 143). In buUdmg theh ranch the Rocha femUy had used foreign models for the buUdings. "The bam was buih on the engUsh style and it was sheathed with miUed one by fours and painted white and it had a cupola and a weathervane on top ofthe cupola" (Horses 117). Foreign mfluences appear in many areas ofthe Rocha femUy, and John Grrady sees a marriage to Alejandra, although a break with tradition, as a possibUity and a viable avenue towards his goal of property acquisition in

Mexico.

Rocha and John CJrady also note the presence of foreign mfluences m the equine genealogies that they study and discuss. ChUdhood conversations between John Grady and his grandfether often dweh on shmlar topics, noting the physical trahs of various blood

49 Unes. The narrator describes the subject of one of theh conversations, an oUpaintmg of horses which hung m the Ghady dinmg room:

They had the long Andalusian nose and the bones of theh feces showed Barb blood. You could see the hindquarters ofthe foremost few, good hindquarters and heavy enough to make a cuttinghorse. As if maybe they had Steeldust in theh blood. But nothing else matched and no such horse ever was that he had seen and he'd once asked his grandfether what kind of horses they were. (Horses 16)

John Cjrady displays a thorough knowledge of various horse Unes to the hacendado. In rapid-fire succession Rocha quizzes hhn about a horse named Three Bars, a crioUa, Sam

Jones, Crawford Sykes, and a book on horses by WaUace. Recognizmg John Cjrady's understandmg of horses, he mvolves the boy m a program at the hacienda that breeds a thoroughbred whh the ranch mares to produce quarterhorses. Breaking the thoroughbred lineage by such breeding whh wUd mares resuhs produces the characteristic of violence, described by the old horseman, Luis, as he works with John Grady in the mountains. "He said that the souls of horses mirror the souls of men more closely than men suppose and that horses also love war. Men say they only leam this but he said that no creature can learn that vs^ch his heart has no shape to hold" (Horses 111). Thus identifying the violence m the horse and recognizmg John Cjrady's close aflSnity to the horse, a description of that quality in the American boy is a logical deduction. This extension also describes the Unhed States, metaphoricaUy represented by John Cjrady.

The lehmotif of horses, which I mtroduced m Chapter I, extends not only to the theme, but also to the thle of this novel Cormac McG^hy tumed to a chUd's luUaby to select a phrase for the thle, All the Pretty Horses.

50 Hushaby, Don't you cry. Go to sleepy, Uttle baby, When you wake. You shaU have, AU the pretty Uttle horses- Blacks and bays. Dapples and grays, Coach and six-a Uttle horses. (Luce 156)

In the context ofthe novel and given the violence associated with h, the thle assumes an honic cast. John Grady's youth and his initial appearance in the novel as a son, who laments the dissolution ofthe femUy inheritance, links him whh the chUd in the first Unes of the poem. The second part ofthe poem promises the chUd, among other things, a black horse and a bay. These particular types of horses play significant roles m the novel through theh close identification whh Alejandra and Jhnmy Blevins. In his thle McCarthy omhs the dimmutive "little horses" for Alejandra's horse is a black Arabian saddlehorse and Jimmy Blevins rides a big bay horse. A further association occurs between the lullaby's last Une and McCarthy's metaphoric chess games. In the early history ofthe game the coach was the ancestor ofthe present-day piece known as the rook or castle and representative of an estate for which John Cjrady longs.

Because of his close association whh this motif of horses, John Grady reveals his receptivity to theh influence and characteristics, even to theh violence. In addition to his deep understanding of horses, John Ghady also possesses an unusuaUy close sense of identity with them. For hhn the horses represent an order which must be present.

51 The boy., .sat a horse not only as if he'd been bom to it vMch he was but as if were he begot by maUce or mischance into some queer land where horses never were he would have found them anyway. Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever h was needed for as long as h took untU he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been. (Horses 23)

In feet, except for the brief time spent m the SahUlo prison, John Cjrady's Ufe revolves aroimd horses; even a great deal of his time with Alejandra is in the presence of horses. .

Such identity with the animals also suggests an association of characteristics. John Cjrady speaks to the horses in tones of one sharing a secret, confiding to a fiiend, but also m tones of command and order. He spoke in "phrases ahnost bibUcal repeatmg agam and again the strictures of a yet unfabled law. Sov commanHant^ (^e 1a<; y^g^^^*', he would say, yo y yo solo. Sin las caridad de e<;ta,s manos no tengas nada ('T am the commander ofthe mares, I and I alone. Whhout the care of these hands you have nothmg") (Horses 128).

Three tunes whhin the one paragr^h McCarthy further stresses the control which John

Cjrady expresses through the use of "who's wiU" (Horses 128). Beyond control, he shares an emotional bond with the horses as they become a part of his dreams and he becomes a part of theh world.

...m the dream he himself could run whh the horses., .and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under theh running hooves...and there was nothing else at aU m that high world and they moved aU of them m a resonance that was Uke a music among them and they were none of them afi^d horse nor coh nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world hself and which cannot be spoken but only praised. (Horses 161, 162)

52 John Cjrady understands horses; he speaks confidentially with them, dreams of them, and sees them as an mtegral part ofthe order ofthe world. John Cjrady also shares the characteristics of theh souls and theh hearts. Theh order becomes his order, and he acquhes the love of violence which they know, consequently Unking the motife of horses and theh violence which results fromth e violation to theh order to John CJrady.

Violence, resident in the soul ofthe horse, emerges m the soul of John Cjrady, as weU as in the society of AU the Pretty Horses, addressed metaphorically by McCarthy m the game of chess. Alfonsa possesses a most elegantly designed chess set. "The board was pieced fromblock s of chcassian walnut and bhdseye maple whh a border of mlaid pearl and the chessmen were of carved ivory and black hom" (Horses 133). In the English hnperialistic expeditions ivory and hom were prized spoils, often secured through great violence to the animals. The various pieces of chess represent different elements of society as they confront each other on the playmg board. Under hs entry for chess, The

Oxford English Dictionary quotes T.H. Huxley in his Lay Sermons of 1868 as saying:

"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena ofthe universe, the rules of the game are what we caU the laws of Nature" (8: 94). Smce my thesis looks at violence m Mexican society through the metaphor ofthe game of chess, a brief review ofthe game's history and laws provides a basis for the study.

Little authoritative mformation exists on the early history ofthe game; the first

Uterary reference appears m a Persian manuscript around AD 600. InhiaUy, the game served as a means of communication between the gods and man with the pieces fellingo n a divination board. Later a secularized version moved fromIndi a to China and then on to

53 Arabia, after hs conquest of Persia. The Oxford Companion to Chess identifies three paths by vy^ch the game entered Europe: "whh the Moorish mvaders of Spam m the 8th century, through the Islamic conquerors of SicUy shortly afterwards, and by way ofthe

Byzantme En^he m the East" (144-45). Significant to this thesis is the acknowledgment of Spam as a chess center. 'Tt is only fittmg that the firstauthenti c reference to chess m

Europe be found m Spain...[C]hess became very popular with the king of Spain and with theh courtiers and the country was destined to become one ofthe two great centres of chess m the world. The other was to be Italy" (Golombek 50- 51). Comciding with the

Spanish heritage of Alfonsa, the Spanish background of chess strengthens her tie to it.

Several ofthe chess pieces underwent a change during the development ofthe game, the most notable being around 1475 when the Queen emerges from what was a formerly male

Counselor. Speculation attributes this change to a confusion m the translation ofthe term for the Counselor, Fers: mispronounced, Fers became Vierge. Vhgin, and eventuaUy

Queen. Alfonsa associates easUy with this piece, both as the powerfiil C^een and as the counselor to Alejandra. Two important books about chess relate through characters' names to AU the Pretty Horses. Alfonso the Wise, Kmg of CastUe and Leon, ordered the production of an historicaUy important Ulustrated manuscript m 1283 >\^ch contained mformation about the game and also about feiryproblem s or unorthodox moves. Alfonsa beats John Ghady whh a move simUar to those described m Alfonso's manuscript. Aaron

Alexandre, a Bavarian by bhth, pubUshed a volume m Paris m 1837 contaming openmgs which were m use at that thne. Notorious for his unstmctured and problematical Ufestyle, desphe occasional successes in writing, Alexandre bears a marked similarity to Alejandra,

54 >^o bears the Spanish version of his name. Neither the wrher nor the ghl was able to control his own Ufe.

The arrangement ofthe chess pieces and pawns on the battlefield ofthe board suggests a violent encounter between opposmg royalties. In feet, smce the queen is the strongest piece, the French give her name to the game, Jeu de dames, and some analysts even suggest a parricidal quaUty to the game. Alexander Cockbum writes: "Humanism has watered the pastures of leisure and of games whh much uplifting speculation But in the world of games Ue areas of darkness, of taboos, of cmel mstmcts and vUe deshes. For the time being, let us narrow the focus to the chess player fece to fece, as m so many medieval woodcuts, whh Death" (13).

Cockbum's underlying "darkness" weU describes the imusual evening of chess between Alfonsa and the young ranch hand, John CJrady Cole, m AU the Pretty Horses.

McCarthy leaves no doubt about the game's significance, placing it alongside the billiards game between John CJrady and Rocha in the center of this very orderly novel; but order does not describe the game or the evening. Though the chessboard is laid out m an orderly grid, or matrix, deviations often occur in hs orthodox tradhions. The contenqx)rary protocol ofthe game even accepts certain imorthodox, or feiry, moves, which, though they are actual deviations from the rules, are accepted by custom to be m order. These deviations reveal breaks m the order and produce the violence ofthe confrontation on the chessboard. After John CJrady wins the first two games, Alfonsa uses a feiry move as an opening unknown to her opponent and wins the thhd game. Explaining it later, she attributes the openmg, known as the King's Own, to PoUock who developed h

55 as a deviation ofthe French Defence. Not usually included m standard chess Uterature, this openmg is also known as the Tumble Weed Opening, receiving "considerable vogue out West" (Chemev 46). Its popularity m the west, John CJrady's home, prompts Alfonsa to remark, 'T was afraid you might know h" (Horses 134). Thus m her suggestion that the young American might know the non-tradhional move, Alfonsa unpUes that he also harbors within himself an imderstandmg of deviation and hs associate violence. In feet,

John CJrady's very knowledge of chess emerges as an element in the order of inheritance, because he learned the game from his fether;however , his fether'sdeat h now breaks that order.

In this confrontation of violence between American interests, in the figure of John

CJrady, and Mexican cuhure, represented by Alfonsa, the Knight bears a significant relevance. This piece may only move in a jagged, junqjing pattern. Through this unusual move the Knight demonstrates his abUity to jump, and John CJrady personally leaps over those he sees as standing between hhnself and his goal He le^s over the pawn, Jimmy

Blevins, and he leaps over RawUns as he seeks favor whh Rocha. He also atten^ts to bypass the order of tradhion in developing his romantic interest whh Alejandra. One of the most obvious fectors relatmg the Knight, also known as the 'Horse," to John CJrady is hs design m the figureo f a horse and the young American's affinity for the animal. In the

Medieval knight such a close aflSnity existed that the riderwa s considered the spirit and the horse the bodUy vehicle (Chlot 169). As a knight, the Medieval horseman was the keeper ofthe treasure, a poshion John CJrady seeks. The knight was also known for his denial of physical pleasure, however, and m this characteristic the ranch hand clearly

56 breaks the order of tradhion Rocha aUudes briefly to such a tradhion m an enigmatic statement suggestmg his knowledge ofthe boy's clandestme relationship whh Alejandra, as weU as his weU known affinity to horses and theh violence. "Beware gentle knight"

(Horses 146).

McCarthy focuses on Alfonsa's skiU in playing chess, a game which, through hs representation of battle, associates her also with violence. As the powerfiil Queen,

Alfonsa provides the dhection and control of this game of warfare. Possession of her own warriors, pieces which are identical to those of the Kmg, strengthens the (^een and, combmed with her sweeping moves, makes her a formidable adversary. She possesses the the responsibility to end the battle by checkmating the opposing King and effectively stopping John CJrady m the game as she does Uterarily; she effectively arranges his retum to the Unhed States. HistoricaUy related to the Vhgm Mary and her poshion as the Holy

Queen, the Queen of Heaven, the chess piece ofthe Queen bears a particular relevance to

Alfonsa, the unmarried grand-aimt of Alejandra. Just as she controls John CJrady's fiiture in Mexico, she knows that she controls Alejandra, "She wiU not break her word to me.

You wiU see" (Horses 240). The Queen wields her power both in the game and in the

Mexican femUy. Explaining that he plans to accede to Alfonsa and send Alejandra to study m France, Rocha remarks on his poshion, "Why do I bother myself? Eh? She wiU go. Who am I? A fether. A fether is nothmg" (Horses 146). At this pomt his poshion appears symboUc, very shnilar to that ofthe King m chess. The C^een, whh her abUity to move in any dhection, demonstrates her power in the violence ofthe chess battle and m the violence of Mexican culture. She identifies the Rocha femUy as gachupmes, or

57 Spaniards wiio settled in Mexico and were, m effect, once foreigners themselves.

Acknowledgmg her femUy as foreigners, Alfonsa pomts to a violence m aU the Spaniards and declares that the Spaniard has "a deep conviction that nothing can be proven except that h be made to bleed. Vhgms, buUs, men. Uhhnately God hhnself'(Hoises 230).

Alfonsa attributes the violence of Mexico to the destmction of hs natural order through the mfluence of foreigners. The Mexican no longer controls the order of his country, and that loss of control resuhs in violence.

In contrast to Alfonsa's chess games, Rocha invhes John CJrady to join him in billiards, a game which McCarthy uses metaphoricaUy to reveal certam characteristics of the hacendado. Although of an obscure origin, the game appeared in England in the eleventh century with the retum ofthe Knights Ten^lar from theh crusades (Americana

Encyclopedia 747). The incorporation of an intermediary baU, a baU which serves as an agent to knock the object ball, relates metaphorically to the novel Rocha does not remove John Grady from his daughter's Ufe dhectly but, rather,work s through an intermediary agent, employing the Mexican guards to effect his work. The guards, performing as agents for Rocha, physically remove John CJrady and Rawlins; however,

Rocha's most powerfiil agent, his metaphoric cue ball, is Alfonsa. She confronts John

CJrady on her battlefield ofthe chessboard and m person; more hnportantly though, she handles the money used to bribe his way out of prison and provide him with a means to get out of Mexico. Rocha, on the other hand, has very Uttle dhect contact with John

CJrady, but he owns both the cue and the ivory cue baU, the metaphoric agents used to acconqjUsh his goals. "He racked the baUs and handed the cuebaU to John CJrady. It was

58 ivory and yeUow with age and the gram ofthe ivory was visible m h" (Horses 144). The violence m bUUards does not emanate from a battlefield board, as m chess, but from a force of one baU agamst another m dhect hits. The agent of force m Rocha's set, the cueball, is made fromivor y and shows a discoloration and veining as evidence ofthe time h has been a part ofthe Rocha femUy. The Oxford EngUsh Dictionary explams the relationship of ivory to bone m hs definition ofthe latter: "4.b. AppUed to other anhnal substances more or less akm to bone; as the dentme ofthe teeth, the ivory ofthe tusks of the elephants." The same source notes that the two terms were used interchangeably by

W. Browne m 1616: "An ivory dart she held of good command; Whhe was the bone."

Suggesting hiq)erialistic violence hself^ the use ofthe Rocha femUy's ivory game pieces expands the leitmotif associating bone with violence, as introduced in Chapter I.

Fashioned from ivory and horn, materials especiaUy associated whh imperiaUstic expeditions by England and often obtained through great violence, the billiard balls and the chess pieces suggest images of rnqjerialism.Joh n CJrady's involvement m these games,

StrategicaUy located in the center ofthe novel and played by the three primary characters, combines with his mterest m securing land to provide fiirthersuppor t for my thesis that

John CJrady represents American mterests seekmg to acquhe property m Mexico.

Rocha, very outspoken agamst the foreign mfluence m Alfonsa's education, does not hesitate to e5q)ress his feeUngs about the presence of foreigners. Referring metaphoricaUy to the billiard game, his expression reaches deeper than the social game and places the responsibUity for violence on foreigners.

59 He bent to shoot and missed his shot and stepped back fromth e table. There, he said. You see? You see how this is bad for one's bUUard game? This thmkmg? The French have come mto my house to mutUate my bUUard game. No evU is beyond them. (Horses 146)

The French influence in Mexico has been a substantial one historicaUy. Though he does not Uve m the State of Sonora, Rocha nonetheless knows the mfluence ofthe French settlers there as they acquhed property and led the Mexicans m an action to secede from

Mexico. In Blood Meridian Captam White explams the situation to the kid, referring to the French and theh epicurean preference for frogs. "There are aheady some fourteen thousand French colonists m the state of Sonora. They're bemg given free land to settle...EnUghtened Mexicans encourage this. Paredes is aheady calling for secession from the Mexican government. They'd rather be ruled by toadeaters than thieves and hnbecUes" (34). Rocha findsth e French mfluence m his home distastefiil because he, as representative of Mexico, feels he has lost control of his domam to the French, as the

Mexicans in Sonora did one hundred years earUer. His daughter, Alejandra, chooses to be whh the foreigner, John CJrady, and Rocha sees this action as exemplary of his loss of control, and consequently loss of order. Alejandra describes her fether'sextrem e reaction to the news that she and the American are lovers: '1 didnt know that he would stop loving me. I didnt know he could. Now I know" (Horses 252).

Rocha valiantly tries to maintam control of order m his femUy and m his equme breeding program. As a gachupme he is actuaUy a foreigner, himself a Spaniard whose ancestors chose to leave theh homeland and estabUsh theh estate in Mexico; thus, Rocha

60 represents a dismption to the Une of his Spanish heritage. When John CJrady's con:q)anion,

RawUns, returns to his home m the Unhed States, the ranch hands comment on his retum m broad statements that describe a person's mherent nationaUty.

They were saddened that he was not coming back but they said that a man leaves much when he leaves his own country. They said that h was no accident of chcumstance that a man be bom in a certain country and not some other and they said that the weathers and seasons that form a land form also the inner fortunes of men in theh generations and are passed on to theh chUdren and are not so easUy come by otherwise. (Horses 226)

This aggregate of characteristics that form a man reflects an mfluence of his national heritage and femilial heritage. Like the horse, these traits reside deeply whhin him; however, unUke the horse they are not so carefiiUy bred. These characteristics form the particular nature, or order, of that person, and a violation to them results m violence.

Rocha's femily broke that natural national heritage when they chose to remain in Mexico.

An introduction of different Unes, through planned breedmg, affects the characteristics ofthe horses, but they stiU carry theh ancestors' order withm them. In John

CJrady's dream he sees the horses in theh ancient order, theh land, and understands the m^rtance of theh herhage as he had earUer known the mqwrtance of his own.

...m his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses m his dream moved gravely among the tUted stones Uke horses come upon an antique she where some ordering ofthe world had feUed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away agam and the horses were wary and moved whh great chcumspection carrying in theh blood as they did the recoUection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. FinaUy what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse's heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no ram could erase it. (Horses 280)

61 The "order m the horses' heart" refers to the order of theh memory with which they are able to identify a location where something dismpted the natural order and caused the removal of horses from theh natural place. Locatmg the memory withm the heart protects h from damage and provides a pomt of con^arison between theh current and theh former Ufe. Consequently, the dismption ofthe external order results m the violence which appears m horses as a part of theh natiu-al affinity for war.

When a dismption occurs m a natural sequence, the conflict between the resident natural order and the new envhonmental order causes a violence which affects both entities. My thesis finds that this violence, resulthig from breaks m natural orders, occurs in AU the Pretty Horses whh John CJrady's disenfranchisement from his femily ranch, the introduction of foreign lines into the equine breeding program, and the introduction of foreign influences mto both the Mexican and American cultures. In his metaphoric role representing the Unhed States, the young Texan experiences the dismption of his very f identity, his femily, just as t6e nation endures violence resuhmg fromth e dismption ofthe development of its native identity and culture by foreign forces. John CJrady, m his mvolvement with the Rocha femUy, whnesses the hnportation of foreign cultures into that of Mexico and the violence which resuhs from h. He then returns to his own homeland and notes the prevalence of foreign names m the cemetery. A desolation greets him as he passes the Ustless mdians and the hon punqyacks lookmg Uke "mechanical bhds" (Horses

301). The technology ofthe oU industry has broken the natural desert, and the destmction ofthe American natural envhonment and cuhure by this same technology resuhs in violence. That violence finds John CJrady m the wake ofthe horror engendered by the

62 testmg ofthe first atomic bomb. Emerging fromth e heart ofthe frontier,thi s violence

demonstrates the violence John CJrady finds both m himself and in his homeland.

63 CHAPTER rV

THE MATRIX IN THE CROSSING

...every act invhes the act which foUows and the extent the men put one foot before the other they are acconqjUces in theh own deaths as m aU such facts of destiny. He said that moreover h could not be otherwise that men's ends are dictated at theh birth and that they wUI seek theh deaths in the face of every obstacle...h was more correct to say that no matter how hidden or crooked the path to theh destmction yet they would seek h out. (Crossmg 379)

As in Blood Meridian and AU the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy addresses violence in The Crossing as it evolves from a chaUenge or violation of an estabUshed order, often appearing here m the image of a matrix. The protagonist of this novel atten^ts to restore order by returning a wolf to the land of her birth and to bring his femUy's horses and his brother's remams back to theh home. Not realizing complete success in any of these areas, he seeks order for himself in his homeland, only to find a devastating violence there. My thesis views the boundaries and sequences inherent in a matrix, as representative of an order fromwhich , when some entity violates the matrix, a violence emerges. The protagonist discovers this violence in Mexico and m the United

States; more mqx)rtantly, however, he discovers it withm hhnself A summary ofthe novel reviews the theme and plot, introducmg my study ofthe matrices.

McCarthy retams a Southwestem settmg for this novel as he did for the first volume m The Border Trilogy: however, instead of Texas, this settmg is southem New

Mexico, near the Mexico border. Raised on a ranch leased by theh famUy, BUly and Boyd

Parham jom theh fether m trying to catch a wolf that has been kilUng Uvestock in theh

64 area. BUly, checkmg the traps alone one day, findsth e wol^ but a fescmation whh her overcomes him and he does not take her home. Instead, he rigs a muzzle and harness for her, plannmg to retum her to her native Mexico and set her freether e to be v^h other wolves. His plans go awry when the alguacU, the local Mexican law enforcer, takes the wolf for bait m a dog fight, a popular spectacle m the area. Unable to stand by and watch her tortured by the men and dogs, BUly kills her, trades his gun to a hide merchant m exchange for her corpse, and carries her into the mountams for a burial

Lacking food and other necesshies for winter travel by horseback, BUly encounters many difficulties on his joumey but eventuaUy makes his way back to his femUy's ranch.

However, during his absence, his ranch home has been ransacked, the horses stolen, his dog's throat cut, and his parents murdered in theh sleep. His younger brother, Boyd, had hidden and escaped physical harm, despite the feet that the murderers repeatedly caUed his name. BiUy retrieves his brother, now safely m the care of a neighboring femUy, and takes some papers, found at the house and saved for him by the sheriff. He displays particular mterest in having the papers, which prove ownership ofthe horses. BUly, accompanied now by Boyd, sets out agam for Mexico.

This time Billy and Boyd ride m search of theh stolen horses and the men who took them, leavmg theh parents murdered. Involved m various atten^ts to accon^Ush theh goal they findthemselve s threatened when they rescue a ghl from two horsemen, the boys narrowly escapmg with theh own horses and the ghl Some thne later, after the boys' repeated atten:q)ts to repossess theh femUy'shorses , the same ghl becomes

65 romanticaUy mvolved whh Boyd, and the two of them leave BUly to go theh own way.

Thus, left alone and unable to obtam the stolen horses, BUly returns to the Unhed States.

Back in his native land, BUly tries unsuccessfiiUy to enUst m the Army. His rejection by the mUitary, coupled whh a general dissatisfection whh the work he has found, causes BUly to decide to retum agam to Mexico, this tune to find his brother.

Hearing that his brother and the ghl were kUled whUe fightingwit h Mexican revolutionaries, he searches for the cemetery, exhumes Boyd's remams, and sets off for the Unhed States puUmg a travois laden with the bundle of his brother's bones. However,

before he can reach the border he encounters four horsemen who beUeve the travois

bundle may contain something of value to them. Not acceptmg BUly's explanation that it

contains only his brother's bones, the horsemen desecrate the bundle, demand Billy's

waUet and shoot his horse. A delay of a few days gives the horse thne to regain some

strength and BiUy an opportunity to rearrange his bundle on the travois. EventuaUy he

continues the joumey to his homeland where he buries his brother.

Destmction of order at his ranch and in Mexico combine to produce the violence which BUly encounters; m the exhumation of his brother's remams from the origmal burial she BUly becomes responsible for a break m order. At the end ofthe novel McCarthy leaves us whh an hnage which discloses BUly's personal violence m the context of

America's greater violence. He me3q)Ucably leaves his ranchmg job and rides back towards central New Mexico, the she of violence associated with the firsttestm g ofthe atomic bomb. He now has no job, no home, and no femUy.Hi s violence agamst the old dog paraUels that ofthe Mexicans agamst the wolf m the beghmmg ofthe novel, and he

66 whnesses the turbulence created by the atomic test explosion m July, 1945. Violence permeates BUly's envhonment as he sits on the desert tarmac.

Order, one ofthe leitmotife I mtroduced in Chapter I, assumes a thematic dimension in The Crossing as h did m AU the Pretty Horses: however, this theme is an order which, >\iien chaUenged or broken, resuhs m violence. In this novel McCarthy looks at another aspect of order by describmg it m the hnagery of a matrix. The Oxford EngUsh

Dictionary defines a matrix as "A place or medium m which something is 'bred', produced, or developed... A place or point of origin and growth... A rectangular arrangement of quantities or symbols...The matrix consists of n rows and n columns" (9:

476-77). Two aspects ofthe matrix develop the theme of violence as it affects BUly and

Boyd Parham. The ordered matrix design affords McCarthy a vehicle for examining external patterns, both real and symboUc, and also theh fimction as sheUs for the mtemal forces.

The association between the matrix, hs violation and violence, which McCarthy establishes early in the novel, supports my thesis that violence emerges from the violation of order. The matrix firstappear s m the context of firearms and huntmg as the Parham boys and theh father seek a bait to use m trappmg a wolf which has kiUed one of theh cattle. They findth e sought-after vial in a contamer designed for materials of violence, a wooden ammunhion box bearing a red markmg, "No. 7 Matrix" (Crossing 17). The description ofthe vial's contents reveals stiU more relation to violence.

In the jars dark Uquids. Dried viscera. Liver, gall, kidneys. The inward parts ofthe beast who dreams of man and has so dreamt m running dreams a hundred thousand years and more. Dreams of

67 that malignant lesser god come pale and naked and aUen to slaughter aU his clan and kin and rout them fromthe h house. A god insatiable whom no ceding could appease nor any measure of blood. (£mssiiigl7)

Detennmed to gam mformation about the wolf; BUly goes to see Don Amulfo, an old man reputed to have a special understandmg ofthe animals, and someone who provides fiirther

Unkage between the matrix and violence. Queried about the effectiveness ofthe vial's contents for luring the wolf to the trap, the old man, after some moments of contemplation, suggests an alternative route which describes a violence related to the matrix, ahhough not determined by it.

The matriz wiU not help you, the old man said. He said that the boy should find that place where acts of God and those of man are of a piece...He said that h was at such places that god sits and consphes in the destmction of that which he has been at such pains to create. (Crossmg 47^

The specter of violence m the matrix, using the term this time as descriptive of both the point of origin and the rectangular shapes of rooms m the en^ty house, permeates the homestead where BiUy discovers the horror done to his parents. "The house was empty. He waUced through aU the rooms" (Crossmg 163). Two pages later

McCarthy enq)hasizes the design ofthe matrix pattern by repeatmg the last sentence

(Crossmg 165). In his parents' bedroom BUly finds the mattress with hs matrix design of tickmg and hi^rints of bedspring coUs. FmaUy, tummg the mattress over, he reveals the powerfiil evidence of violence, "an enormous bloodstam" (Crossmg 165). In the violation ofthe matrix of BUly's home, he finds evidence ofthe violence perpetrated on his parents.

68 McCarthy stresses the violence emergmg fromdisorde r also through Billy's encounter with the blind man Exhausted and leadmg a fehering horse at night on the desert prairie, he makes his way to a Ught and a cabm. There the woman teUs hhn the tale of her husband who lost his eyes whUe fightingi n Durango m 1913; a German Huertista personaUy sucks the man's eyes out, leaving the rebel for a brief tune with his eyes dangling and an extremely distorted vision 'Tie could see the tranpled dust ofthe street beneath him..He could see his own mouth" (Crossing 277). Consequently, this experience enables him to speak extensively to Billy about order, disorder and violence.

"...whUe the order which the righteous seek is never righteousness hself but is only order, the disorder of evU is in feet the thing hself (Crossing 293). This tale told by the bUnd man thus supports my thesis that the chaUenge to the order, or matrix, is m feetth e catalyst which produces the violence.

Such orderly arrangements, at times violated, appear in The Crossing as borders, roads, riversan d many other physical demarcations and frontiers. BUly crosses the mtemational border between two countries only to find a violence which affects the rest of his Ufe. Several experiences Ulustrate his confrontations whh violence. He finds h necessary to part with his wounded brother at a crossroads, placing him m the midst of a wagonload of con^assionate workers who agree to care for hhn (Crossing 271). The horsemen take BUly and the wolf mto custody just after he has tried to get the anhnal across a river(Crossm g 95). Even the actions ofthe cattle reveal a change fromforme r habhs and, consequently, a break with tradhion Through the wolves' especiaUy bmtal

69 attacks on the cattle, they show an apparent anger at the cattle's violation of old orders and boundaries as they are "floundering through the fences and dragging posts and whes behind them... As if the cows evoked in them some anger. As if they were offended by some violation ofan old order. Old ceremonies. Old protocols" (Cmssisg 25).

Non-physical arrangements of order, the necessity for specific documents or papers, at tunes evolve into pomts of aggression when a dismption to the order occurs.

When the men seize the wol^ they demand documents or a receipt for the wolf BUly, having neither papers for the wolf nor a passport for himself can offer no defense for his actions. He must suffer indhectly for his lack of order, watchmg whUe the Mexicans confiscate the wolf as contraband (Crossing 246, 257). Preparing for a shnUar chaUenge when he tries to reclaim the horses, BUly takes those documents relevant to them

FoUowing the death ofthe boys' parents, the sheriff offers several documents to Billy; however, he elects to take only the documents vaUdatmg his ownership ofthe horse, Nino.

BiUy, armed with the documents for his horse, learns, however, that his papers carry no value when authority wants the prize; when he cannot maintain order with the appropriate documents, violence occurs. In addition an external order described by a matrix, the term also refers to a shell, or an outer covering, from which somethmg evolves. This sheU aspect ofthe matrix occurs in the form of a mask m The Crossmg. In a scene at the

Hacienda de San Diego, McCarthy mtroduces a traveUng opera company m a production with stock characters fromth e Medieval form of Commedia del'Arte. The opera, probably an adaptation ofPagUacci by LeoncavaUo, reveals the tradhional violence which resuhs when PagUacci, the stock character of PunchmeUo, discovers the mfideUty of his

70 wife, the tradhional Colombma. PagUacci smgs ofthe reaUty of his anguish over the knowledge of her transgresston which he must hide daUy beneath the mask ofthe buffoon

G^oncealing not only the character's tme feelings of anguish, the mask fimctions as an external matrix for holdmg m check the growmg violence beneath it.

McCarthy contmues the episode about the opera company several days later when

BUly and Boyd encounter hs members staUed on the road due to the violence which one of theh members committed whUe in a drunken rage. He hacked a mule to death. In a discussion ofthe opera with the female singer BiUy asks why PunchineUo kills her character. Apparently taking the question with some seriousness, the singer seeks another performer's opmion. Uhhnately concurring, they explam that the double murder of herself and the Harlequin character takes place because PimchineUo knows her secret (Crossing

229). Ahhough the most immediate understanding of her secret reflects her infidelity, the singer's coUeague points out that the real secret is that the mask is the truth. "El secreto, he said, es que en este mundo la mascara es la que es verdadera" (The secret, he said, is that in this world the mask is tmth) (Crossing 229). The tmth Ues in the external matrix, the structure of order, not in the violence which emanates from the chaUenge to that order.

This external feature ofthe mask appears kter m connection with cattle.

Searchmg for his brother, whom he beUeves to be dead, BUly notices riders and cattle appearing periodicaUy m the distance, crossmg the grasslands. The vaqueros "were caUed mascarefias for the whhefeced cattle bred on the Babicora" (Crossing 382). In the attitude ofthe wolf toward cattle, ched earUer, the author has aheady estabUshed a relationsh^ between cattle and violence. The mascarefias' cattle apparently come fromth e ranch

71 where BUly's stolen horses reportedly are kept. In this passage McCarthy poshions the horses and the cattle, both associated with violence, as emerging fromth e matrix, the external mask, ofthe ranch.

In order to vaUdate an existence, or occurrence, of violence, a witness must observe the act. Vf^hout such an observation the act exists m a void m hs sheU and cannot fimction as an act. Thus, the observation ofthe act becomes its vaUdation and the container, or matrix, ofthe act becomes hs witness. Hence, the matrix determmes the existence ofthe acts which develop in h. In Huisiachepic Billy listens to a survivor's account of one violence which kiUed his parents and of a second violence which kiUed his son. The narrator tells ofthe survivor's final days spent m the ruins of a church where he seeks an imderstanding ofthe reason he alone survived these two tragedies; his poshion as a whness to them occupies aU his thoughts. "Acts have theh bemg m the witness,

^^hout him who can speak of h? In the end one could even say that the act is nothing, the witness all..If the world was a tale who but the witness could give it Ufe?' (Crossing

154) The violence to the matrix, then, does not exist as an isolated entity, but one which must represent the mclusion of another, the whness. The bUnd man, in this case, provides a focus for the societal element of witness m the process of violence. From this tale BUly leams that m the act of violence the power of witness is lost. The violence, by removmg the power ofthe witness, removes itself from significance. In order to witness violence, the viewer must be outside the violence of society; otherwise, he would be a part ofthe violence and consequently not aware of h. The bUnd man speaks ofthe perpetrator ofthe violence: 'He said that who steals one's eyes steals the world and himself remams thereby

72 forever hidden" (Crossing 291). This tale ofthe bUnd man demonstrates yet another way m which violence becomes obscured. "... [I]t was a thing of which men do not speak. He said that the wicked know that if the Ul they do be of sufficient horror men wUl not speak against it. That men have just enough stomach for smaU evils and only these wiU they oppose" (Crossmg 292). When no words or witness dismpt the order ofthe matrix, the violence does not exist.

Regarding two events of extreme violence, McCarthy permits the witness to remain mute: BiUy never relates the violence done to the wol^ and Boyd never discusses the horror of his parents' assassmation Violence, as seen m the shadow ofthe matrix m

The Crossmg. emerges fromth e violation ofan external order. However, the witnessmg, visual or verbal, ofthe violence must occur to realize its existence, and this recording then becomes the historical record. Cormac McCarthy reveals a heritage of violence m the matrix from which the two brothers come.

BUly and Boyd knew chUdhood m an area historicaUy plagued by great tragedy and violence. Ft. Sumner, De Baca County, New Mexico. General James Carleton mtended Ft.

Sumner, buUt m 1862, to "help along Carson's campaign agamst the Mescalero Apaches, and to discourage Kiowas and Comanches from commg mto the Pecos River country"

(Keleher 485). Through the ensumg years, attempts to control attacks by various tribes of

Native Americans tumed the fort and the adjommg plains, Bosque Redondo, mto a holding ground for those who had endured the destmction of theh ancestral customs and homeland. "Ahnost nme thousand Navajos and i^aches, men, women and chUdren, were confined and mounded m a place that offered no hnmediate hope for sustammg Ufe for

73 more than a few hundred people at the maxhnum" (Keleher 380). ContmuaUy failing crops combmed whh the national disregard for those confined to sentence many to a slow death by starvation Ahhough BUly's and Boyd's ancestors Uved m this area, they were Mexican and, therefore, probably not confined as were the Native Americans. BUly says that his mother was "from off a ranch up m De Baca County," and that both his grandmother and sister are buried there (Crossmg 419, 3). His mabUity to find his sister's grave m Ft. Sumner suggests that, m this area which had whnessed so much violence, a shnilar act may have destroyed the marker. This area of documented violence. Ft. Sumner knew also the notorious deeds of BUly the Kid, who is bmied there. The county borders another county which also possesses a heritage of violence. Lmcohi County, New

Mexico, known for its bloody range wars m the thhd quarter ofthe nineteenth centiuy, encompassed the enthe southeastem comer of New Mexico m 1890. Its northem border was only a few mUes south of Ft. Sumner. BUly and Boyd represent the end of three generations of theh maternal femily bom m the matrix of Ft. Sumner and hs violence.

Moving to Hidalgo County, New Mexico, when BUly and Boyd are sk and four years old, respectively, the Parham femily leases a ranch in an area which has also known violence. Don Amulfo, an old man whom BUly consults about tr^pmg the wolj^ identifies the heritage ofthe area when told the young man comes from Las Charcas.

Hay una historia aUa. Historia? Si, said the old man. He lay holding the boy's hand and staring up at the kindUngwood latUlas ofthe ceUing. Una historia desgraciada. De obras desahnadas. [There is a story there. Story?

74 Yes...An unfortunate story. Of mhuman works.] The boy said that he did not know this history and that he would Uke to hear it but the old man said that h was as weU he did not for out of some certain things no good could come and he thought this was one of thenL (Crossmg 43-44^

Located at the border between New Mexico and Mexico, Hidalgo County jomed hs neighbors in the violence of border wars throughout the last half of the nineteenth century and the firsttw o decades ofthe twentieth. "Border raids had always been a feet of Ufe along the international line. Governments filed a few perfimctory conqjlamts, and tiuned to important matters" (Metz 224). The notorious Mexican bandh, Pancho Villa, waged a notably vicious attack agamst Columbus, New Mexico, a town located very near Hidalgo

County. "On the night of March 9,1916, his raiders spurred mto the sleeping village of

Columbus, killing innocent civilians and burning much ofthe town. The reasons why are stUl not clear. Some say a Columbus merchant had cheated him, but in his long and colorfiil career. Villa must have been cheated by numerous people. Such betrayals went with the territory" (Metz 224). Although McCarthy does not specify the mcident which eUched Don Amulfo's comment, attacks such as the one on G^himbus were known in the

Hidalgo Coimty area. The violence which kiUed the boys' parents at theh Hidalgo Coimty ranch marks another pomt m theh heritage affected by violence; three generations of theh femily Uved m these areas known to have experienced atrochies.

In BiUy's attenq)t to retum order to his world, he develops a special bond whh a wolf which he mhiaUy set out to trap and destroy. McCarthy reveals BUly's senshivity to

75 wolves and the very special relationship he has whh them. Shortly after the femUymove s to Hidalgo County, BUly whnesses the magic of theh nocturnal activhies.

Then he saw them commg. Lopmg and tvdsting. Dancmg...He could hear theh breath. He could feel the presence of theh knowmg that was electric m the ah...They were looking at hhn He did not breathe. They did not breathe. They stood. Then they tumed and quietly trotted on (Crossing 4)

Don Amulfo fiuther strengthens this Unk between the boy and the wol^ referring to each as a hunter, but he goes fiuther to describe also the difference between them. Ahhough both hunt, the wolf possesses a knowledge ofthe nature ofthe hunt which is deeper than the boy's.

...the hunter was a different thing than men supposed. He said that men beUeve the blood ofthe slain to be of no consequence but that the wolf knows better. He said that the wolf is a bemg of great order and that it knows what men do not: that there is no order in the world save that which death has put there...Between theh acts and theh ceremonies Ues the world and in this world the storms blow and the trees twist in the wind and aU the animals that God has made go to and fro yet this world men do not see. They see the acts of theh own hands or they see that which they name and caU out to one another but the world between is invisible to them. (Crossmg 45-6)

When Billy catches the wolf in his trap, his longmg for order dictates his taking her back to her native Mexico. The wol^ no longer able to find food in the land of her ancestors, had wandered northward where she was forced to kiU cattle for her food. Her sense of order identifies the cattle as foreign to her ancestral land and attacks them with bmtality.

"As if they were offended by some violation ofan old order" (Crossing 25). BUly foresees a danger to her if she stays m America. He takes special care of her, protectmg her from working dogs, calUng her "my wol^" and rescumg her m the river (Crossing 65, 94). Her

76 pregnancy provides a fiuther Une of order which would be preserved if BUly were successfiil in retummg her to the land of her herhage. The total desperation and fiiistration which he experiences, however, m his unsuccessflil attenpts to rescue the wolf from the bmtal torture ofthe fightmgdogs , drive him ulthnately to end the violence by killing her himself He subsequently trades his mstrument of violence for the wolfs corpse which he tenderly carries away and buries in a place safe from fiutheraggressio n In his effort to provide safety for the animal, BiUy meets with increased violence frombot h men and animals. The disorder and bedlam ofthe fightmg arena prove to the young representative of America that order for the hunter, man or animal does not exist in

Mexico.

He squatted over the wolf and touched her fiir. He touched the cold and perfect teeth. The eye tumed to the firegav e back no Ught and he closed it with his thumb and sat by her and put his hand upon her bloodied forehead and closed his own eyes that he could see her running in the mountains, running in the starUght where the grass was wet and the sun's coming as yet had not undone the rich matrix of creatiu-es passed m the night before her. (Crossing 127)

BiUy seeks to rectify the disorder he finds not only by returning the wolf to her homeland, but also by searching for his parents' horses m Mexico. Theh theft fromth e

Parham ranch during the tragic attack violated the protective sheher, or matrix, which the ranch provided for the horses. This Ulegal acquishion ofthe horses further supports my thesis that the destmction of order and legal process produces an associated violence. In

The Crossmg McCarthy's exploration ofthe violence accompanying the horses vaUdates my identification ofthe horses as a lehmotif m this novel The horses provide the motivating fector carrying BiUy and Boyd across the border mto Mexico. BiUy

77 encountered problems when he coiUd not produce q)propriate papers for the wolf >^en he takes her mto Mexico, and so he carefiiUy takes documents verifying his femUy's ownership ofthe horses fromth e coUection of his parents' belongmgs offered to hhn by the Lordsburg sheriff. Supportmg the m^rtance of this lehmotif is the feet that BUly leaves other valuables, including his mother's weddmg ring, and takes only the papers for two ofthe horses. Ahhough he understands the finitlessness of his action, BUly atten:q)ts to coUect the horses and restore order through the use of proper orders, his papers. He teUs Boyd: "There amt no law m Mexico. It's just a pack of rogues" (Crossmg 176); but when chaUenged for his horses by a Mexican horseman, BiUy permhs him to take his papers. The horseman proves the accuracy of BUly's earUer intuhion: "He looked through the papers and then refolded them...He said that the papers were of no value"

(Crossing 247). CJilUan, a horse trader m Casas CJrandes, offers BUly an invoice of recent purchases which is also useless. Associated dhectly whh the violence in the Parham home and the theft of theh horses, the fiitiUtyth e boys ejqjerience with legal documents represents the destruction ofthe order and matrix ofthe law.

When BiUy and Boyd ridemt o the Hacienda de San Diego, they ride mto a matrix from which much ofthe violence m the novel emerges. In givmg this episode hs central location m the work, appearing on page 215 out of 425, McCarthy identifies hs catalytic iiaportance. The mhials L.T. carved beneath the name ofthe ranch reveal hs former owner as Luis Terrazas, one-time govemor ofthe state of Chihuahua and miUionahe cattle baron; he was also a horse breeder. A man of many unscmpulous deals, Terrazas' busmess transactions whh Americans eamed him the most hatred. In feet, the Babicora

78 ranch, to which BiUy and Boyd trace some of theh horses, has American connections. 'Tt is owned by one of your countrymen, a senor Hearst" (Crossmg 200). Appropriation of

Mexican lands for American mvestment caused great unrest among the peasants who, strengthened by Pancho VUla's revolutionary fervor, eventuaUy drove Terrazas out ofthe country. In December, 1911, VUla's attack on Qjmaga forced representatives from aU segments of Mexican society across the river; Terrazas was among them, "bringing with him a herd of thoroughbred horses" (Justice 5). "The richestrefuge e of aU, Don Luis

Terrazas, brought out his femUy, his peons, his fiiends and whoever wanted to go.

Twenty wagons of wealth and personal belongings passed through Qjmaga. In El Paso he rented an enthe floor ofthe Paso del Norte Hotel before moving mto Senator A.B.FaU's mansion on Arizona Street" (Metz 216). Terrazas controUed not only the Chihuahuan government but also the raihoadmg, mining and banking interests; his protection by

A.B.FaU was significant. Supported by the National Association for the Protection of

American Rights in Mexico, a powerfiil organization which coimted among hs constituents J.P.Morgan, Standard QU of New Jersey, and Chase National Bank, Senator

FaU fromNe w Mexico convinced the American President and Congress to send mUitary forces mto northem Mexico. This move forced the retreat of Terrazas' old foe, Pancho

VUla, paved the way for the eventual retum of Terrazas to Mexico, and aided in protectmg American mterests there. From the violence of Terrazas' Hacienda de San

Diego the destmction ofthe Mexican national heritage, through the mflux of foreign interests, produced much ofthe unrest and violence ofthe revolutionary activhies.

79 Emergmg from theh refiige m the matrix ofthe same Hacienda de San Diego, BiUy and Boyd experience the violence which results from the destmction represented by

Terrazas. However, when Boyd leaves whh his ghl fiiend, he destroys the last remaming femily Unk for the Parhams; the separation uhhnately resuhs in the violence of Boyd's death. In the operatic production at the Hacienda, honically a peasant production of a genre normaUy reserved for an affluent audience Uke Terrazas, another example of violence emerges, this thne fromth e sheU ofthe broken romance between PagUacci and

Colombina. Even the inhabitants ofthe Hacienda seem to be survivors of violence.

Identified by the ghl as an ejido, the ranch now is pubUc land where the otherwise homeless may stay. Most mqx)rtantly, when BUly leaves the Hacienda for the last time, he exhibhs an aggression which has not been apparent previously.

Several events note this change m BUly. After Boyd leaves whh the ghl BUly retxuns to the Unhed States and attempts to enUst m the Unhed States Army, repeatedly feeing rejection on medical grounds. "You've got a heartmurmur" (Crossmg 339). These unsuccessfiil appUcations represent his external chaUenge to the matrix, but a dismption has occurred to the order withm BUly's heart. StUl below the minimum age for enUstmg,

BUly not only forges the name of his mother on a permission form, he changes her name con^letely. Furthermore, his personal matrix, serving as a sheU for the violence in his heart, now reveals a damage to that very heart. Desphe his pleas for remedies of any kmd, the doctors agree m theh designation of him as "4 F' based on a heart murmur, and BiUy

80 finds his attenqjts to associate with the organization of violence, the army, con^letely thwarted. He now begins his thhd joumey to Mexico, this time as a very different person.

No longer the con^)assionate young man caring for a wolf or a younger brother,

BUly's aggression surfeces on this trip and with it an indication that he finds a certam pleasure in confrontational situations. In a blatant disrespect for the national culture he provokes a Mexican veteran to the brink of violence by not acceptmg the old drunk's preference for drinking mescal "You want to drink that stmkin catpiss m fevor of good american whiskey, BUly said, you be my guest" (Crossmg 361). Eventually, he avoids a gun fightb y respectfiiUy removmg his hat at the drunk's display of his scars, evidence of an earUer violence.

The most telling revelation ofthe violence m BiUy's character, however, occurs when he returns to New Mexico at novel's end. McCarthy displays his virtuosity in pUing up around BUly various types of violence which contrast whh a most heinous sort of violence of even more immediacy. The author's lengthy description ofthe old dog, a survivor of numerous violences, eUchs great pathos for the animal and, at the same thne, reveals a great aggression withm BUly. His vicious, gratuhous attacks on the dog resuh from the hostUe violence m his nature, which has now become apparent.

He foUowed h...Reposhory often thousand mdignhies and the harbmger of God knew what. He bent and clawed up a handfiil of smaU rocks fromth e graveled apron and slung them. The dog raised its misshapen head and howled wehdly. He advanced upon h and it set off up the road. He ran after it and threw more rocks and shouted at h and he slung the length of pipe. (Crossmg 424)

81 FoUowmg the evening attack on the old dog, the appearance of a rainbow the next morning affords an example of violence in nature. In hs geometric design of contiguous, concentric bands of color h describes a matrix. However, on this last mommg ofthe novel the author suggests that this rambow has whnessed stUl fiuther violence by describmg h as "broken" 'Tt had ceased rammg m the night and a broken rambow or watergaU stood out on the desert m a dhn neon bow" (Crossmg 425). For another representation of violence in the final scene McCarthy draws on a concurrent historical event to underscore the violence m society and serve as the overaU sheU of horror on the desert: the firstatomi c bomb, produced at Los Alamos and exploded at Whhe Sands, New

Mexico, July 16, 1945. BiUy witnesses the peripheral effects ofthe ejqilosion of this ulthnate instrument of violence; it comes as a reaUzation of Boyd's dream of people burning in a dry lake bed (Crossing 35). He notes the gradual darkening ofthe sky, the unusual behavior ofthe tarantulas and bhds, and the cold wind fromth e moimtains.

...out on the blacktop bands of tarantulas that had been crossmg the road m the dark Uke landcrabs stood frozena t theh articulations, arch as marionettes, testmg whh theh measured octave tread the sudden jomted shadows of themselves beneath them...he looked again toward the north the Ught was drawmg away fester and that noon m which he's woke was now become an aUen dusk and now an aUen dark and the bhds that flew had Ughted and aU had hushed once again m the bracken by the road. (Crossmg 425)

Whh only the sound ofthe wmd mtermpting the mtense sUence, the young representative of America must acknowledge the world's violence and his own, whhout and within, and he weeps.

82 BUly's character contains a duality of conpassion and violence. McCarthy introduces the first appearance of his aggression only after the two stays at the Hacienda de San Diego. BUly crosses the symboUc frontier, his thne of change, at his separation from Boyd; fromtha t time onward, aggressive traits characterize his nature. He seeks to rectify the violence he does to the dog, but the dog disappears. BUly cannot help the dog, nor can he retum to his Ufe of conq)assion IntentionaUy violatmg order, BUly nevertheless takes his brother's remains back to the Unhed States. The Yaqui Indian advises hhn that order not only selected Boyd's burial ground, but that Boyd also selected h. "Your brother is in that place which the world has chosen for him. He is where he is supposed to be. And yet the place he has foimd is also of his own choosmg. That is a piece of luck not to be despised" (Crossmg 387-88). Movmg his brother, BUly violates tradhional order and findshimsel f a part ofthe violence ofthe novel WhUe transportmg Boyd's remams back to his homeland, BiUy encoimters highwaymen who want to know what he has. He responds: "Los huesos de mi hermano" (The bones of my brother) (Crossmg 394).

Desecrating the package in search of money, the highwaymen leave the body further damaged. "The bones seemed held together only by the dry outer covering of hide and by theh mtegiunents" (Crossing 398). The lehmotif of bones appears here as an image ofthe violence Boyd experiences m Mexico. Determmed to retum the remams to theh homeland m an effort to reestabUsh order, BUly biuies them m a cemetery m Anhnas, New Mexico.

Even in this act of conqjassion, however, BUly violates another owner's plot and the order ofthe law, thus evoking a wammg from the sheriff.

83 The violence which prevails throughout The Crossing resuhs fromth e destmction ofthe matrix. As the survivor ofthe violence surroimdmg the wolf^ of violence done to his parents, and of many ofthe other aggressive acts described m this novel BUly comes from a heriteige of violence and experiences it himself In his attempt to reconstruct the order ofthe matrix, he finds that his own order is damaged. The young American does not escape the effect of World War n with hs pervasive violence shadowing the novel

Coinciding in dates with the novel the war suppUes yet another matrix for the work in general and for BUly m particular. The violence which drives BUly to retum to Mexico for his brother, also drives him to the New Mexico desert and to attack an old dog.

Frustrated by his feUuret o restore order to his own Ufe and to those for whom he cares,

BUly findsth e greatest violence of aU m his own land and whhin hhnself. As a representative ofthe Unhed States, he finds that the engulfing violence which threatens aU m the form ofthe atomic bomb has emerged from the destmction ofthe natural order of the frontieran d the cuhures origmaUy resident there.

84 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION: THE DARKENING LAND

...that lost nation..pledged m blood and redeemable in blood only...nation and ghost of nation passmg in a soft chorale across that mineral waste to darkness bearing lost to aU history and aU remembrance Uke a graU the sum of theh secular and transhory and violent Uves. (Horses 5)

In the precedmg chapters I have shown that Cormac McCarthy focuses on order as the primary theme underlymg Blood Meridian. All the Pretty Horses and The Crossmg.

Presented not only as a motif unifying the three works and appearing m various forms, order also fimctions as a catalyst which, when chaUenged or violated, produces a violence usuaUy resulting in bloodshed. The protagonists ofthe novels experience chaUenges to the orders of theh Uves and the violence resulting fromthos e chaUenges. Fulfilling theh roles associated with violence, horses appear with the young protagonists and provide at the same time another unifying motif for the three works. The thhd motif which I exammed, bones, suggests the violence ofthe past but McCarthy extended the bone motif fiirther to underscore the destmction of natiual order m the United States by the presence of foreign mfluences. In the destmction of hs natural order of development America experiences a violence resulthig from hs poshion as both the recipient and the perpetrator of imperialism.

This thesis has examined various aspects of order. Numerous defined Unes of geographical borders, as weU as less clearly defined psychological borders, are crossed m the novels; the crossmg of these borders represents chaUenges to theh natural orders.

85 When crossmg the frontier,mdicativ e of a natural order, the characters encounter violence which they both perpetrate and endure as they chaUenge such geographical Unes of order.

Exploring the sequence of genealogical order, McCarthy breaks the order of primogeniture m AU the Pretty Horses through the dissolution ofthe CJrady femUy ranch.

After aU efforts to re-estabUsh h feU,Joh n CJrady seeks to become mvolved with another order of mheritance, this thne m Mexico. His chaUenge to the order of Mexican cuhure and heritage also results m violence. The band of scalphunters encounters no serious deterrent to the dhection, or order, of theh attacks untU they reach Yuma; after the massacre at Yuma and the dissolution ofthe group, the kid meets with the most hemous of aU violence in his confrontation with the judge m CJrifiSn. Even m the thles of Blood

Meridian and The Crossing. McCarthy evokes images of borders or lines.

Though the themes of these novels chaUenge physical borders, frontiers and Unes of tradhion and heritage, violence also emerges through the violation of other types of orders. In The Crossing BiUy finds that his inabiUty to produce appropriate legal orders for the wolf serves as an excuse for the perpetration of violence. In feet, each ofthe three novels contains a judge or a sheriff, enforcement figures for law and order, who addresses the various protagonists about the nature of theh violence and the subject of order. As the defendant m a Utigation mvolving the ownership ofthe horses, John CJrady m AUthe

Pretty Horses teUs the judge about kUUng his feUow hunate in the SaltUlo prison He does not know if he has violated order with the murder. 'T dont know that he's supposed to be dead" (Horses 291). Without making a definhive judgement on the kUUng, the Ozona judge leaves that determmation to John CJrady. Also skirtmg a judgmental action on a

86 violation ofthe law, the Lordsburg sheriff m The Crossing only mUdly reprimands BUly for burymg his brother iUegally. "You camt just travel around the country burym people"

(Crossing 422). In Blood Meridian the Judge exerts an authority in the understandmg of order and, in so doing, chaUenges the natural order.

Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him wiU he be properly suzeram ofthe earth...But that man who sets hhnself the task of singUng out the thread of order fromth e tapestry wiU by the decision alone have taken charge ofthe world and it is only by such taking charge that he wUl effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fete. (198-99)

The preceding chapters have addressed different fecets of order as McCarthy has focused on them, basing the development of violence on the chaUenges to these orders. Thus, order serves as a unifying motif among the novels, but also assumes thematic dimensions through hs fimction as a catalyst for the violence.

I have also shown that McCDarthy links horses to violence in the three westem novels. In Blood Meridian two striking hnages of these animals, which are mythologicaUy associated with Mars, the god of war, appear; both show a mature horse beside a young horse, suggestive ofthe violence m the relationship ofthe older European cuhure to that of the younger America. Through an extension of a propensity for violence fromth e horse to the rider,McCarthy' s protagonists m the two volumes of The Border Trilogy identify personally whh theh horses, assummg theh love of violence. The breeding program msthuted at the hacienda m AU the Pretty Horses breaks the genealogical Une with hs use ofthe ranch mares, thus paraUeUng the break m the heritage of John CJrady.

For the purpose of retrieving the horses taken fromth e matrix, or order, of his home, BiUy

87 sets off a second time into Mexico where he encounters various types of violence, mcluding the death of his brother. McCarthy develops the motif of horses to unify the three novels and to explore the relation ofthe animals' violence to those human characters associated with them. Another motif that McCarthy uses as a unifying device is bones.

By representing past cultures and theh destmction through violence, the bone motif mtroduces violence ofthe past into the texts. Through the context of his own violence, I have shown the judge's aUiance with bones m Blood Meridian: m this association of bones whh the judge, the representative of European culture, a Unk connects bones whh the mperialist forces of Europe. Bone and hom chess pieces in AU the Pretty Horses further suggest an hnage of in^riaUsm and relate to violence not only in the war-Uke game of chess but m the figureo f theh owner, Alfonsa. Drawing the image into an even more dhect reference, bones of BiUy's brother serve not only as a reminder ofthe violence of

Boyd's death, but they also become the object of fiutherviolenc e in an act of desecration by the highwaymen m The Crossmg. Ahhough the author uses other motife which represent violence, such as the color red, Indians, and the sun, this study has only addressed the use of order, horses and bones and the significance of each in the three westem novels.

In an exammation of the author's use of these three motife, I have related the elements of natxu^ order, violence, and the past. Through this combmation of these elements m the westem novels, McCarthy describes the m^riaUst mfluences wielded by

European cultures m the Unhed States and the efforts by American interests to acquhe power m Mexico. Representmg European mfluences m Blood Meridian, the judge affords

88 a metaphoric connection between those foreign interests and the heinous violence perpetrated by him. Characterized by exceptional skills in areas, such as linguistics, music, dancmg, Uterature, rhetoric and science, which typicaUy describe the older culture, the judge also reigns as the dominant mfluence driving the scalphunters m theh rampages across the American frontier. From him come the destmction and the violence which leave the young country's undeveloped lands in devastation; fromth e hrqwshion of

European values on America emerges the devastation of hs native culture. Inperialist tendencies, however, do not stop whh the Eiu*opean mfluences on the American frontier.

American interest in hs most immediate southem neighbor, Mexico, have asserted themselves for more than a century and findrepresentatio n in the volumes of The Border

Trilogy. As a member of a ranchmg femily, John CJrady's romantic mterest in Alejandra must also be read as a means of acquhmg valuable property m Mexico; he further represents American interests in general as they explore investment opportunhies there. In

The Crossmg American interests mtertwine with those of wealthy Mexican polhicians m the absence of law and order and produce that violence which BUly experiences. I have shown the violence related to the dismption of order, first, m BUly's effort to retum the wolf to her native area, and second, m BUly's atten^t to secure his femUy's horses and retum them to America. In this novel the convolution of American and Mexican natives wieldmg power and mfluence m the Unhed States and Mexico so destroys any semblance of order that violence appears whh every event. It is m BUly's homeland that he whnesses the effect ofthe greatest violence of all

89 A darkness in the land, the characters and the plots emanates fromth e ubiquhous violence m Blood Meridian. AU the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, obscuring and contaminating aU that it reaches. Such darkness also affects the understandmg of

McCarthy's writing. As NeU SuUivan notes: "Smce Cormac McCarthy arrived on the

Uterary scene ahnost thirty years ago, the critics have been at a loss about how to view his texts" (HaU and Wallach 115). Nonetheless, the same darkness which may cloud the viewing of his texts also contams the Ufe of those texts and provides the resources for imderstanding them. Various characters in the three novels address the violence which creates darkness.

Wolves cuU themselves, man What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way ofthe world is to bloom and to flower and die but m the affehs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of hs achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. (Blood 147)

What is constant m history is greed and fooUshness and a love of blood and this is a thmg that even God-who knows aU that can be known—seems powerless to change. (Horses 239)

He said that the world could only be known as h existed m men's hearts. For whUe it seemed a place which contamed men h was m reaUty a place contamed whhin them and therefore to know it one must look there and come to know those hearts and to do this one must Uve with men and not shnply pass among them. (Crpssing 134)

Given my exammation ofthe destmction of order and the resuhmg darkness of violence, we can conclude that Cormac McCarthy findsth e darkness m the world to be the resuh ofthe dissolution ofthe natural order of physical sequences, as weU as of cultural

90 and personal identhies. With the mtroduction of European hnperiaUsm, expressed through the judge in Blood Meridian, mto the natural order ofthe American frontier m the mid- nineteenth century, McCarthy describes the death wreaked upon those people indigenous to the frontieran d the destmction ofthe anhnals and wUdUfe native to it. A participant m this violence, the kid meets his ulthnate violence behmd a CJrifSn saloon when he is only forty-five years old just as America feces the darkness which covers hs frontier at a thne when the optimism of new frontier settlements and discovery of California gold reaches hs meridian. Later, the opthnism based on hope for the end of World War n reUes on the use ofthe atomic bomb, the mstrument responsible for the msidious violence suggested at the end of The Crossing, In AU the Pretty Horses the violence that spreads across the Texas plains causes John CJrady to note that he does not recognize his native land and does not understand where he might find a homeland. "But h aint my country...! dont know where it is. I dont know what happens to country" (299). In hnages of unreUeved darkness

McCarthy describes such unrecognizable land, devastated by the attacks of various forms of violence which chaUenged and destroyed hs previous order. The epigraph whh which I mtroduced this chapter refers to John CJrady's reflections on the destmction ofthe

Comanche nation, but it also pamts a scenario which could describe the United States in the darkness ofthe fiiture.

Through the veracity created by the mcorporation of historical figures and events m recognizable geographic locations, McGlarthy mtensifies the hmnediacy ofthe experiences from which the violence evolves. Further, m the use of historical figures a relation appears between the destmction and violence found in the novels and those

91 quaUties present m contemporary American society, affordmg an msight mto the effects of current national poUcies. Uhhnately, the violence ofthe cuhure appears m the mdividual characters. I have shown that McCarthy's characters find Uttle reason for hope m the fiiture, and an exammation ofthe novels' endmgs this hopelessness. Representmg society in Blood Meridian, the pUgrims "move haltmgly m the Ught Uke mechanisms" across the plams as if they are puppets, lackmg theh own propeUmg force. Theh "movements are monhored whh escapement and paUet sot that they appear restramed by a pmdence or reflectiveness which has no hmer reaUty" (337), and there seems to be no productive force motivating theh movement. This hoUowness ofthe pUgrims suggests that they have been victimized by some overwhelming force. The same sense of pessimism closes AUthe

Pretty Horses. In a passage reminiscent of his hnaginary observation ofthe Comanches m the opening pages ofthe novel John CJrady eUchs no curiosity as he rides past the Indians on the Texas desert. "They stood and watched him pass and watched him vanish upon that landscape solely because he was passing. Solely because he would vanish" (301).

As a representative figure for America, John CJrady's fiiture,Uk e that ofthe nation, is afforded Uttle hope ehher by Indians, who beUeve he wiU cease to exist, or by the author.

"..[HJorse and rideran d horse passed on and theh long shadows passed in tandem Uke the shadow of a smgle bemg. Passed and paled mto the darkenmg land, the world to come"

(Horses 302). Accompanied only by horses, the anhnals of violence, the protagonist rides into an unknown darkness. However, in contrast with other the other westem novels by

McCarthy the protagonist m The Crossmg finds a hmt of opthnism at the novel's end through the potential for a re-estabUshment of order. FoUowmg the dramatic

92 envhonmental changes caused by the testing ofthe atomic bomb, BUly expresses his hopelessness m the fece of this example of monumental violence and the demonstration of his own personal violence m an attack upon the old dog. "Standmg m that inexpUcable darkness. Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wmd...he bowed his head and held his fece m his hands and wept" (426). McCarthy expressed his understanding of the presence of violence m a statement which Richard Woodward quoted in a 1992 essay.

'There's no such thmg as Ufe without bloodshed,' McCarthy says phUosophicaUy. 'I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could Uve in harmony, is a reaUy dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up theh souls, theh freedom. Your deshe that h be that way wiU enslave you and make your Ufe vacuous.' (12, 36)

This study of Blood Meridian. AU the Pretty Horses and The Crossmg vaUdates my thesis, therefore, that Cormac McCarthy views the dissolution of order, in the broadest sense ofthe term, as the catalyst for the production of a ubiquitous violence m a dark land.

However, he paints BUly at the end of The Crossing m an attitude of utter remorse, an emotional display unique in the McCarthy's work. Whh an image described in a minimum of words McCarthy offers a hope that has not emerged before. Instead of a chaUenge to order, he mdicates a re-estabUshment of order m the appearance ofthe sun as BUly sits on the desert tarmac: 'Tie sat there for a long thne and after a whUe the east did gray and after a whUe the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for aU and without distmction" (425). In terms descriptive of order, the rismg of "the right and godmade sun," McCarthy writes that a fiiturebui h on natural order may be possible and avaUable for aU regardless ofthe past violence. The focus shifts fromth e violence m the individual,

93 BUly, to an order hnpUed by the appearance of a universal entity, the sun, permitthig the sUghtest rayo f hope to enter the darkness ofthe land. Proffering this order in the "right and godmade sun," Cormac McCarthy offers, as the American frontieroffered , a hope for a new beginning "for aU and whhout distinction" (425).

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