After I closed the book, my sister asked me, “Did ya finish it?” To which I replied yes. She looked at me like for an explanation or something. “I don’t know what happened.” “Well, can you look it up?” “Yeah… but I’m too scared.”
Well, I took me a while. And I knew it. I just knew it would really end this way. Leave it to McCarthy, writing ambiguously the whole book to leave us with an ambiguous ending. Yet, for some reason, I am neither annoyed (as in eye-roll, everyone knows) nor angry nor disappointed. It seemed totally perfect. There was no other way than to end with the judge. There was no way around such a character. And—I can say with complete honesty—I was ready to rid myself of the Kid. When it happened, I could not let go of Glanton. The judge, I could never say goodbye to. But the Kid? Totally. Take a hike, for all I care. That is, if the Kid (or “the man,” now I guess) was even “rid of.” I mean, I still liked him and all—he was really badass—but I really feel nothing at the prospect that he could have croaked (whereas I was up in arms about Glanton and pretty pissed whenever the Kid aimed his pistol at the judge).
Much to my surprise, I did predict before the standard Google search both of the most plausible ends. Either sex or death. My mind went to this “homoerotic” (as Wikipedia calls it) scene first, followed by my conclusion that the Kid was dead. I don’t know why my mind drifted toward the former rather than the latter—perhaps I’m always compelled toward the guy/guy gay thing (lol, don’t ask). But, I’d prefer not to look into this too much, and I would prefer you not to either.
However, let me just add that I would more readily support the death bit (though I really wish that Shaw guy was right). Like, I was pretty sure that judge was going to kill the Kid but, not during the desert stuff. It was when he told the Kid that he loved him like a son, so like page 306. To explain this, I’m going to slightly go into my ‘yandere’ theory with the judge. A yandere (Romanized Japanese, by the way) is someone who is very affectionate and all at first, but then does really twisted and/or aggressive stuff to you after getting to know him. This is basically the judge. For some short examples, there’s the little Apache kid who he cossetted and then scalped and also the puppies which he bought and killed. So his feeling so strongly towards the Kid was basically a death sentence. And then when he said that he was always disappointed in him?—Tsk. Tsk. The Kid should have never stepped into Nacodoches.
OKAY SO PART TWO (word limits sdfhjshdjfhdsgfhdsgfh!)
Also pretty sure the Kid’s heart stopped working at the end because of this little number—“Sie müssen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” (316). According to Tiphanie à l’allemande it means ‘They must sleep but I must dance.’ Yeah, so the Kid is sleeping with the fishes and the judge is dancing. Continuing with this, my sister said that you never capitalize a pronoun in the middle of a sentence, so here what I presume to be the judge is using it to imply that he is God (which by the way wasn’t capitalized the whole book—so, more than God?....)
Okay, and how about how the Kid could never let go of the past. Talk about lame. First he buys Brown’s ear necklace as a touching memento of his fun times in the desert. Then the following years kind of go by in a sped up blur of less important stuff, and he meets the kids. And he’s all like: “this is an ear necklace, I knew the guy who made it, I was shot at 15...blah, blarr.” And then he kills the mouthy kid (lol, I like to think of it as discipline), which I guess could be a killing of his old self or whateva. And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t looking for the judge, like he said, but he was definitely waiting for him.
And so I guess I can wrap this thing up with my feelings about the judge because my word count is pretty much over 9000 at this point. I have NEVER come across a character like him in my entire life. I loved him so much but he also scared the crap out of me. Like, I was so positive he was the antichrist but it didn’t bother me in the least. He had that charisma and eccentricity that just drew me too him. He was a truly captivating figure. I would even read my sister passages about him or really scary stuff that he said (not that she cared). But “he is a great favorite.” So I’m not that special in this. I’m just glad that it ended with him. And he won’t die just because he says he won’t (swear to God) and he’s so lively in the last paragraph of the book. (I don’t count the epilogue because it was really wth. It seemed very out of place for me.) Sorry if this got kind of colloquial at the end—I couldn’t help it for some reason.
I was very pleased with the ending of this book. It was actually a fun way to finish off the novel because I wasn't exactly a fan of the kid, and it left me feeling strange. What I found interested was that the "bad guy" won in the end, which is another way McCarthy changed the general synopsis of a western. I also found it interesting how McCarthy cut forward to many years in the future, and then describes how the man finds a kid that was exactly like himself, and then kills him. As Myranda said, "a killing of his old self or whateva." This could symbolize the growth into a man, and all that fun stuff. It's really cheesy to think about.
The ending of this book was pretty good; I am still a little bit confused at certain parts. As part of the reason is that at times the book would jump around that it would be a lot to keep up with. Though confusing at times, I enjoy the way Cormac McCarthy was able to capture the violence of the west as well as the struggles of going from a boy to becoming a man. In this final chapter we see that the kid is no longer a kid, but a man now. The man continues to travel from place to place as he did when he was young. I found it very ironic and funny that while traveling the man runs into a boy who is not unlike he was during the majority of the novel, young, basically orphaned, and ready to be a man. The man is forced to kill this boy when the boy comes to kill him. It is ironic that the man kills this boy because it is almost as if he has killed himself or what he was a child. Both the man and the boy shared the troubles of trying to become a man while being in the very dangerous place of the west. It is symbolic of the ending of his childhood. Later, the man runs into the judge, and they have a truth seeking discussion, both aware of how this meeting will end. Sure enough, it does end in the man's murder. The judge goes off to dance, just as he always did before when he would kill a small child, illustrating once more the theme of evil. The judge is evil. In this novel, evil has prevailed. This ending makes me feel bad for the now man and once boy to think that traveling all this sway to be killed showed that the times were of evil the best killer would prevail. The man killing the boy is now over looked by his death and it is funny that no matter all the things that he may have done, his death makes him look like the good day of this novel.
When I finished the book I kinda just sat there trying to fathom what had really happened. I've narrowed it down to a few scenarios since then, though I must admit the Cormac McCarthy certainly has a gift for making people put their minds to work. I think I finally understand that the book demonstrates a good vs. evil plot. However, seeing as everyone is barbaric and lawless, it might as well just be evil vs. eviler. As we've noticed since the beginning of the book, a religious theme continues to unravel throughout the story, finally climaxing when the judge and "man" a.k.a. kid meet once again for their final encounter. In the beginning of the book, it is stated that the kid was born during a meteor shower. Since then, it is implied that the kid represents the "second-coming", a sort of savior character who wanders on his lonesome through a godless wilderness. Having his fortune read by the gypsies and coming into contact with the judge (who represents the devil/evil), the kid begins to find his purpose. Before he just wandered from city to city, craving violence and not truly understanding the reason for life. When he comes into the presence of the judge, it's as if he senses some type of superior power that he knows he must avoid until he is prepared. It is to my belief that the kid was supposed to end up becoming the judge, and killing him so that everyone would know him as the most fearless, brutal man to walk the earth. As an adult, the judge tells the "man" that he is the last of the true, though I'm not too confident in what that means exactly. It may imply that the kid is one of the last surviving from the old gang, a group that the judge held the utmost respect for. However, the "man" refuses to kill the judge, he is unable to face him as if it emotionally holds sway over him. It's possible that the "man" refuses to be like the judge (though we know that to be highly unrealistic due to the fact that he just murdered a boy), or that he is simply terrified of this demon. Now the outhouse scene is the most confusing. Is he raped or just killed? I'm thinking raped, because the judge goes naked everywhere and he was bound to do something after a while. So, the judge kills the man, demonstrating that in good (somewhat) vs. evil, evil prevails as the judge states that he will never die because none have overpowered him or taken his place as the most devious man alive. Finally, the ending. The heart-wrenching scene where we realize that history is probably about to repeat itself. During another meteor shower we see an individual digging some kind of holes across the plain. The symbolism of the meteor show represent once again the "second-coming" as fate has replaced the kid with a new character who will complete the task of eliminating the judge from the face of the earth. Due to the fact that the kid has failed, his replacement was chosen by destiny. Another important theme in the book. That's all I have to say, and frankly I don't even know if I made a dent in the truth behind this plot.
I loved the ending to this book because finally the bad guys win in the end. Don't get me wrong I'm not evil or anything and I don't mind when the good guys win but I like something different once in a while and it seems like in books and movies these days the good guys always win but now the dark side has prevailed and the light side has lost. I enjoyed the book the whole way through because even though it had aspects to that of your typical western it brought something new and unique to the table and I think even if you don't like this book you can respect that. Also I love when at the end of books they flash forward to the future so we can reunite with the characters and see what they have become. What I didn't like was the fact that the boy who is now a man killed a boy that was much similar to him. I thought for sure the man would help the boy or at least give him some guidance into man hood that the man never got but McCormick wanted to do something else and besides this I have no complaints.
Quite frankly, I kind of saw the Judge prevailing over the Kid a lot earlier in the story when the narrator pondered the Judge's power and mysterious ways throughout campfire stories and the one lengthy story of the inventive gunpowder. The way the Judge has always been able to free himself from difficult situations foreshadowed his ultimate victory. I found the scene with the Judge visiting the jail scene to be very string evidence of his victory as well. Because the Judge had called the boy out while he was hiding, I saw the “random” release of the Kid to be unofficially caused by the Judge as a way of proving that he would be the one to end the Kid.
On another note, when the Kid encountered Elrod and his friends, I thought it was strange that the Kid would kill him. I feel as though Elrod symbolized the Kid in his early adventures and murdering him was a way of A) preventing him from ever having to live the life the Kid did or B) Wanting to eliminate those who could one day bear resemblance to the Judge and others encountered along the journey.
Reflecting upon the book in its entirety, I still fall into the disappointed category overall because I read hoping for something interesting/ unexpected but never got that from McCarthy. Granted, this was supposed to be a “stereotypical romanticized western” but most authors add some flare and I feel as though the most variety that the reader saw in Blood Meridian was the Judges naked dancing (which I can’t say I particularly loved either). All in all, the book was decent but it left me pretty bored and disappointed
Where to begin? The immediate thought upon completing Blood Meridian can be summed up as this (at least for me): "Yep, I was right, the Judge represents the Devil". Whether you are or are not religious I do not care, this book to me is a clear interpretation of biblical events in combination with the western life style of always getting what you deserve in the end (if you hoot with the owls you won't soar with the eagles). Regardless, it is clear that this book was done in a very artistic manner, and quite frankly I believe the kid HAD to die in the end. It was the only way for this prophecy of meeting-damnation-when-you-sell-your-soul theme we have going on here to be fulfilled. I enjoyed the book, sometimes happy endings can be too ignorant and I am glad that this book was realistic. The Judge was corrupt but necessary, and his character (at least in my opinion) is to remind the reader that even if you realize half way through that what you are doing is wrong, you still are going to be punished in some way. There is no get out of jail free card in life. And that's about all the philosophy I can slur right now.
One idea that I've been thinking about a lot while reading this play is Emilia's role. She is the antagonist's wife that works as a "middle man" throughout the play, but she only does it because she wants to please her husband. She has the mentality of a protagonist...but she's really working against her friend. I really don't think this play was fair because either way Desdemona was going to die because Othello is just stupid for believing Iago. It makes me mad k
=^.^= kitty
( )___( ) ( = '.' = ) (")____(")
Seminar question..hm Based on her actions, whether they are positive or negative, is Emilia categorized as an antagonist or a protagonist in Othello?
i dont know why i posted this on Blood Meridian i'm sorry O_O
After I closed the book, my sister asked me, “Did ya finish it?” To which I replied yes. She looked at me like for an explanation or something. “I don’t know what happened.” “Well, can you look it up?” “Yeah… but I’m too scared.”
ReplyDeleteWell, I took me a while. And I knew it. I just knew it would really end this way. Leave it to McCarthy, writing ambiguously the whole book to leave us with an ambiguous ending. Yet, for some reason, I am neither annoyed (as in eye-roll, everyone knows) nor angry nor disappointed. It seemed totally perfect. There was no other way than to end with the judge. There was no way around such a character. And—I can say with complete honesty—I was ready to rid myself of the Kid. When it happened, I could not let go of Glanton. The judge, I could never say goodbye to. But the Kid? Totally. Take a hike, for all I care. That is, if the Kid (or “the man,” now I guess) was even “rid of.” I mean, I still liked him and all—he was really badass—but I really feel nothing at the prospect that he could have croaked (whereas I was up in arms about Glanton and pretty pissed whenever the Kid aimed his pistol at the judge).
Much to my surprise, I did predict before the standard Google search both of the most plausible ends. Either sex or death. My mind went to this “homoerotic” (as Wikipedia calls it) scene first, followed by my conclusion that the Kid was dead. I don’t know why my mind drifted toward the former rather than the latter—perhaps I’m always compelled toward the guy/guy gay thing (lol, don’t ask). But, I’d prefer not to look into this too much, and I would prefer you not to either.
However, let me just add that I would more readily support the death bit (though I really wish that Shaw guy was right). Like, I was pretty sure that judge was going to kill the Kid but, not during the desert stuff. It was when he told the Kid that he loved him like a son, so like page 306. To explain this, I’m going to slightly go into my ‘yandere’ theory with the judge. A yandere (Romanized Japanese, by the way) is someone who is very affectionate and all at first, but then does really twisted and/or aggressive stuff to you after getting to know him. This is basically the judge. For some short examples, there’s the little Apache kid who he cossetted and then scalped and also the puppies which he bought and killed. So his feeling so strongly towards the Kid was basically a death sentence. And then when he said that he was always disappointed in him?—Tsk. Tsk. The Kid should have never stepped into Nacodoches.
OKAY SO PART TWO (word limits sdfhjshdjfhdsgfhdsgfh!)
ReplyDeleteAlso pretty sure the Kid’s heart stopped working at the end because of this little number—“Sie müssen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” (316). According to Tiphanie à l’allemande it means ‘They must sleep but I must dance.’ Yeah, so the Kid is sleeping with the fishes and the judge is dancing. Continuing with this, my sister said that you never capitalize a pronoun in the middle of a sentence, so here what I presume to be the judge is using it to imply that he is God (which by the way wasn’t capitalized the whole book—so, more than God?....)
Okay, and how about how the Kid could never let go of the past. Talk about lame. First he buys Brown’s ear necklace as a touching memento of his fun times in the desert. Then the following years kind of go by in a sped up blur of less important stuff, and he meets the kids. And he’s all like: “this is an ear necklace, I knew the guy who made it, I was shot at 15...blah, blarr.” And then he kills the mouthy kid (lol, I like to think of it as discipline), which I guess could be a killing of his old self or whateva. And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t looking for the judge, like he said, but he was definitely waiting for him.
And so I guess I can wrap this thing up with my feelings about the judge because my word count is pretty much over 9000 at this point. I have NEVER come across a character like him in my entire life. I loved him so much but he also scared the crap out of me. Like, I was so positive he was the antichrist but it didn’t bother me in the least. He had that charisma and eccentricity that just drew me too him. He was a truly captivating figure. I would even read my sister passages about him or really scary stuff that he said (not that she cared). But “he is a great favorite.” So I’m not that special in this. I’m just glad that it ended with him. And he won’t die just because he says he won’t (swear to God) and he’s so lively in the last paragraph of the book. (I don’t count the epilogue because it was really wth. It seemed very out of place for me.) Sorry if this got kind of colloquial at the end—I couldn’t help it for some reason.
I was very pleased with the ending of this book. It was actually a fun way to finish off the novel because I wasn't exactly a fan of the kid, and it left me feeling strange. What I found interested was that the "bad guy" won in the end, which is another way McCarthy changed the general synopsis of a western. I also found it interesting how McCarthy cut forward to many years in the future, and then describes how the man finds a kid that was exactly like himself, and then kills him. As Myranda said, "a killing of his old self or whateva." This could symbolize the growth into a man, and all that fun stuff. It's really cheesy to think about.
ReplyDeleteThe ending of this book was pretty good; I am still a little bit confused at certain parts. As part of the reason is that at times the book would jump around that it would be a lot to keep up with. Though confusing at times, I enjoy the way Cormac McCarthy was able to capture the violence of the west as well as the struggles of going from a boy to becoming a man. In this final chapter we see that the kid is no longer a kid, but a man now. The man continues to travel from place to place as he did when he was young. I found it very ironic and funny that while traveling the man runs into a boy who is not unlike he was during the majority of the novel, young, basically orphaned, and ready to be a man. The man is forced to kill this boy when the boy comes to kill him. It is ironic that the man kills this boy because it is almost as if he has killed himself or what he was a child. Both the man and the boy shared the troubles of trying to become a man while being in the very dangerous place of the west. It is symbolic of the ending of his childhood. Later, the man runs into the judge, and they have a truth seeking discussion, both aware of how this meeting will end. Sure enough, it does end in the man's murder. The judge goes off to dance, just as he always did before when he would kill a small child, illustrating once more the theme of evil. The judge is evil. In this novel, evil has prevailed. This ending makes me feel bad for the now man and once boy to think that traveling all this sway to be killed showed that the times were of evil the best killer would prevail. The man killing the boy is now over looked by his death and it is funny that no matter all the things that he may have done, his death makes him look like the good day of this novel.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finished the book I kinda just sat there trying to fathom what had really happened. I've narrowed it down to a few scenarios since then, though I must admit the Cormac McCarthy certainly has a gift for making people put their minds to work. I think I finally understand that the book demonstrates a good vs. evil plot. However, seeing as everyone is barbaric and lawless, it might as well just be evil vs. eviler. As we've noticed since the beginning of the book, a religious theme continues to unravel throughout the story, finally climaxing when the judge and "man" a.k.a. kid meet once again for their final encounter.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the book, it is stated that the kid was born during a meteor shower. Since then, it is implied that the kid represents the "second-coming", a sort of savior character who wanders on his lonesome through a godless wilderness. Having his fortune read by the gypsies and coming into contact with the judge (who represents the devil/evil), the kid begins to find his purpose. Before he just wandered from city to city, craving violence and not truly understanding the reason for life. When he comes into the presence of the judge, it's as if he senses some type of superior power that he knows he must avoid until he is prepared. It is to my belief that the kid was supposed to end up becoming the judge, and killing him so that everyone would know him as the most fearless, brutal man to walk the earth.
As an adult, the judge tells the "man" that he is the last of the true, though I'm not too confident in what that means exactly. It may imply that the kid is one of the last surviving from the old gang, a group that the judge held the utmost respect for. However, the "man" refuses to kill the judge, he is unable to face him as if it emotionally holds sway over him. It's possible that the "man" refuses to be like the judge (though we know that to be highly unrealistic due to the fact that he just murdered a boy), or that he is simply terrified of this demon.
Now the outhouse scene is the most confusing. Is he raped or just killed? I'm thinking raped, because the judge goes naked everywhere and he was bound to do something after a while. So, the judge kills the man, demonstrating that in good (somewhat) vs. evil, evil prevails as the judge states that he will never die because none have overpowered him or taken his place as the most devious man alive.
Finally, the ending. The heart-wrenching scene where we realize that history is probably about to repeat itself. During another meteor shower we see an individual digging some kind of holes across the plain. The symbolism of the meteor show represent once again the "second-coming" as fate has replaced the kid with a new character who will complete the task of eliminating the judge from the face of the earth. Due to the fact that the kid has failed, his replacement was chosen by destiny. Another important theme in the book.
That's all I have to say, and frankly I don't even know if I made a dent in the truth behind this plot.
I loved the ending to this book because finally the bad guys win in the end. Don't get me wrong I'm not evil or anything and I don't mind when the good guys win but I like something different once in a while and it seems like in books and movies these days the good guys always win but now the dark side has prevailed and the light side has lost. I enjoyed the book the whole way through because even though it had aspects to that of your typical western it brought something new and unique to the table and I think even if you don't like this book you can respect that. Also I love when at the end of books they flash forward to the future so we can reunite with the characters and see what they have become. What I didn't like was the fact that the boy who is now a man killed a boy that was much similar to him. I thought for sure the man would help the boy or at least give him some guidance into man hood that the man never got but McCormick wanted to do something else and besides this I have no complaints.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, I kind of saw the Judge prevailing over the Kid a lot earlier in the story when the narrator pondered the Judge's power and mysterious ways throughout campfire stories and the one lengthy story of the inventive gunpowder. The way the Judge has always been able to free himself from difficult situations foreshadowed his ultimate victory. I found the scene with the Judge visiting the jail scene to be very string evidence of his victory as well. Because the Judge had called the boy out while he was hiding, I saw the “random” release of the Kid to be unofficially caused by the Judge as a way of proving that he would be the one to end the Kid.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, when the Kid encountered Elrod and his friends, I thought it was strange that the Kid would kill him. I feel as though Elrod symbolized the Kid in his early adventures and murdering him was a way of A) preventing him from ever having to live the life the Kid did or B) Wanting to eliminate those who could one day bear resemblance to the Judge and others encountered along the journey.
Reflecting upon the book in its entirety, I still fall into the disappointed category overall because I read hoping for something interesting/ unexpected but never got that from McCarthy. Granted, this was supposed to be a “stereotypical romanticized western” but most authors add some flare and I feel as though the most variety that the reader saw in Blood Meridian was the Judges naked dancing (which I can’t say I particularly loved either). All in all, the book was decent but it left me pretty bored and disappointed
Where to begin? The immediate thought upon completing Blood Meridian can be summed up as this (at least for me): "Yep, I was right, the Judge represents the Devil". Whether you are or are not religious I do not care, this book to me is a clear interpretation of biblical events in combination with the western life style of always getting what you deserve in the end (if you hoot with the owls you won't soar with the eagles). Regardless, it is clear that this book was done in a very artistic manner, and quite frankly I believe the kid HAD to die in the end. It was the only way for this prophecy of meeting-damnation-when-you-sell-your-soul theme we have going on here to be fulfilled. I enjoyed the book, sometimes happy endings can be too ignorant and I am glad that this book was realistic. The Judge was corrupt but necessary, and his character (at least in my opinion) is to remind the reader that even if you realize half way through that what you are doing is wrong, you still are going to be punished in some way. There is no get out of jail free card in life. And that's about all the philosophy I can slur right now.
ReplyDeleteOne idea that I've been thinking about a lot while reading this play is Emilia's role. She is the antagonist's wife that works as a "middle man" throughout the play, but she only does it because she wants to please her husband. She has the mentality of a protagonist...but she's really working against her friend. I really don't think this play was fair because either way Desdemona was going to die because Othello is just stupid for believing Iago. It makes me mad k
ReplyDelete=^.^= kitty
( )___( )
( = '.' = )
(")____(")
Seminar question..hm
Based on her actions, whether they are positive or negative, is Emilia categorized as an antagonist or a protagonist in Othello?
i dont know why i posted this on Blood Meridian i'm sorry O_O