Regeneration through (non)violence: A cultural trauma of the frontier in C. McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”

Abstract

   The paper discusses the plot functioning of the frontier in “Blood Meridian” – an anti-Western novel by the contemporary American author C. McCarthy – through the concept of “regeneration through violence”, which means forming identity as a result of the use of force. The concept is reflected in the classic Western, which legitimizes the colonial activity in the fight against the Other – Native Americans and nature. McCarthy consistently deromanticizes the national myth of the noble and valiant pioneers, revealing and explicating the cultural trauma of colonization incorporated into the American national identity. Deconstruction is carried out through the use of Southern Gothic imagery and a special type of narrative that transcends the ethical. The Western traditionally includes the forces of nature in the process of frontier confrontation, and the revisionist approach excludes nature from the sphere of human control. The incessant war of all against all, unfolding on the frontier, is opposed in the novel by the idea of non-violent interaction with nature, which, much later, takes shape in the form of the “dark ecology” conception. By analyzing the novel, we have found that the constantly reproduced in American culture trauma of colonization can be survived through the recognition of the traumatic experience and analytical work.