Sacred Violence
Sacred Violence
Most of Cormac McCarthy's work centers around the notion of inescapable evil, or as one critic named it, "sacred violence." No matter how peaceful the appearance of a situation or how comfortable characters might make themselves, violence is always building latently under the surface. McCarthy rarely agrees to interviews, but in a rare conversation with the New York Times, he virtually spells out the theme at the center of All the Pretty Horses:
There is no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is really a dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
The theme of sacred violence, then, has two components - human's innate affinity for bloodshed and the futility of denying this affinity. We see examples of this human instinct once John Grady and Rawlins arrive at the La Purisima ranch. Just as a metal rod attracts lightning, the two Americans serve as scapegoats for a community to exorcise its repressed hostilities. Alejandra uses John Grady as a pawn in her own adolescent rebellion, Rocha allows the arrest of the two men as virtual whipping boys for his daughter, Alfonsa wars against John Grady to purge the rage of her own past. Innocent in their youth, both Rawlins and John Grady never question their assumption that members of two communities can merge harmoniously. But after being expelled from the ranch, thrown into prison and unjustly accused of a crime, witnesses to the execution of a friend, beaten into submission by convicts, and stripped of their dignity, the two Americans learn that their souls are not only defined by their search of serenity and fulfillment, but also their ability to survive in the face of primal aggression. Rawlins ultimately cannot handle this duality of human nature and returns
Most of Cormac McCarthy's work centers around the notion of inescapable evil, or as one critic named it, "sacred violence." No matter how peaceful the appearance of a situation or how comfortable characters might make themselves, violence is always building latently under the surface. McCarthy rarely agrees to interviews, but in a rare conversation with the New York Times, he virtually spells out the theme at the center of All the Pretty Horses:
There is no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is really a dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.
The theme of sacred violence, then, has two components - human's innate affinity for bloodshed and the futility of denying this affinity. We see examples of this human instinct once John Grady and Rawlins arrive at the La Purisima ranch. Just as a metal rod attracts lightning, the two Americans serve as scapegoats for a community to exorcise its repressed hostilities. Alejandra uses John Grady as a pawn in her own adolescent rebellion, Rocha allows the arrest of the two men as virtual whipping boys for his daughter, Alfonsa wars against John Grady to purge the rage of her own past. Innocent in their youth, both Rawlins and John Grady never question their assumption that members of two communities can merge harmoniously. But after being expelled from the ranch, thrown into prison and unjustly accused of a crime, witnesses to the execution of a friend, beaten into submission by convicts, and stripped of their dignity, the two Americans learn that their souls are not only defined by their search of serenity and fulfillment, but also their ability to survive in the face of primal aggression. Rawlins ultimately cannot handle this duality of human nature and returns