Abstract
Brinkmeyer explores what he calls Cormac McCarthy’s long view of history, one stretching from humanity’s origins to its apocalyptic future, that he sees central to McCarthy’s gothic imagination and fiction. In exploring McCarthy’s historical vision, Brinkmeyer draws from a number of the major novels, including Outer Dark, Child of God, Blood Meridian, The Border Trilogy, No Country for Old Men,and The Road. McCarthy’s long view of history, as Brinkmeyer shows, adds a startling and terrifying dimension to his fiction, a dimension of darkness and devastation that threatens to erase the significance of the human and the humane. In McCarthy’s forbidding world, as Brinkmeyer discusses at the close of his chapter, characters who perform small acts of goodness and charity stand out as McCarthy’s heroes, tiny but significant beacons of light signaling the way for McCarthy’s seekers in the vast gothic darkness.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Brinkmeyer, R. H., Jr. (2000). Remapping southern literature: Contemporary southern writers and the west. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
McCarthy, C. (1968). Outer dark. New York: Vintage. 1993, print.
McCarthy, C. (1973). Child of God. New York: Vintage. 1993, print.
McCarthy, C. (1985). Blood meridian: Or the evening redness in the West. New York: Vintage. 1992, print.
McCarthy, C. (1992). All the pretty horses. New York: Vintage. 1993, print.
McCarthy, C. (1994a). The crossing. New York: Vintage. 1995, print.
McCarthy, C. (1994b). The stonemason. New York: Ecco Press. 1995, print.
McCarthy, C. (1998). Cities of the plain. New York: Vintage. 1999, print.
McCarthy, C. (2006a). No country for old men. New York: Vintage. 2005, print.
McCarthy, C. (2006b). The road. New York: Knopf. Print.
McGrath, C. (1994, June 27). Lone rider. New Yorker, pp. 180–185.
Phillips, D. (1996). History and the ugly facts of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. American Literature, 68(2), 433–460.
Further Reading
Arnold, E. T. (1999). Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy. Rev. ed. Jackson: University press of Mississippi. An expanded edition of the important collection of essays that appeared in 1993.
Arnold, E. T., & Luce, D. C. (Eds.). (2001). A Cormac McCarthy companion: The border trilogy. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. The first collection of essays to examine All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain as a trilogy.
Cooper, L. R. (2011). No more heroes: Narrative perspective and morality in Cormac McCarthy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Focuses on the quiet presence of the humane and the ethical in McCarthy’s violent world.
Cremean, D. N. (Ed.). (2013). Critical insights: Cormac McCarthy. Ipswich: Salem Press. A fine overview of the important issues and themes in McCarthy studies.
Frye, S. (2009). Understanding Cormac McCarthy. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. A splendid introduction to and overview of McCarthy’s career.
Frye, S. (Ed.). (2014). The Cambridge companion to Cormac McCarthy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A wide-ranging collection of essays on McCarthy’s work from many critical perspectives.
Hall, W. H. (2002). Sacred violence: Cormac McCarthy’s western novels. El Paso: Texas Western Press. A companion to the volume on McCarthy’s Appalachian works, this collection, by some of McCarthy’s finest critics, focuses on his Western fiction.
Hall, W. H., & Wallach, R. (Eds.). (2002). Sacred violence: Cormac McCarthy’s Appalachian works (2nd ed.). El Paso: Texas Western Press. An important collection of essays on McCarthy’s fiction set in Tennessee.
Holloway, D. (2002). The late modernism of Cormac McCarthy. Westport: Greenwood. Rather than from regionalist perspectives, Holloway explores McCarthy’s fiction in the context of modernist discourses.
Lilley, J. D. (Ed.). (2014). Cormac McCarthy: New directions. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. A very fine sampling of sophisticated critical readings of McCarthy.
Lincoln, K. (2009). Cormac McCarthy: American canticles. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Focuses on McCarthy’s overall vision, with a particular focus on McCarthy’s post-Tennessee fiction and its interrogation of the cultural myths of the United States.
Luce, D. (2009). Reading the world: Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee period. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. A reading of McCarthy’s early fiction by one of his finest critics.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brinkmeyer, R.H. (2016). A Long View of History: Cormac McCarthy’s Gothic Vision. In: Castillo Street, S., Crow, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47774-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47774-3_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-47773-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-47774-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)