A Study Of Allegorical Themes In Cormac McCarthy's Novels

Cormac McCarthy?1933-?,solitary and mysterious,is one of the most important contemporary writers in the United States.In contrast to his secretive and elusive personal life,his literary work is critically acclaimed and well-known in the U.S.Several of his novels have been adapted for films and all turned out to be blockbusters.Every outstanding writer would have his or her own specific literary style.And what makes McCarthy unique is that each of his fictions has its own style and embodies distinctive allegorical themes.In some novels,even the chacaters jump out to comment the literary work allegorically.Therefore,approaching McCarthy‘s fiction from the perspective of allegory makes sense and is feasible.Allegory is one of the oldest and basic literary forms,and is also an art forever full of vitality.Canadian literary theorist Northrop Frye once said that all readings and interpretations are in essence allegorical.Although this statement is perhaps too absolute,it can not be denied that any literary work has some allegorical elements within.On the basis of traditional allegory theory,the 20^th century literary world has witnessed the rise and development of modern allegory theory.Its ambiguious,fragmental and melancholic features fit the characteristics of post-modern world.Therefore,allegory has gained its popularity among many contempory writers including Cormac McCarthy.This dissertaion discusses the allegorical themes in six of McCarthy‘s novels,namely Suttree,Blood Meridian,All the Pretty Horses,The Crossing,Cities on the Plain and The Road.The above novels were written and published in different periods and ranges from the auther‘s early writing period to his late writing period.This dissertation attempts to explore the allegorical elements and themes of the novels,thus providing some new perspective for better understanding McCarthy as a man of letters and his novels as an organic whole.This dissertaton consists of six parts.The first part presents a brief introduction to McCarthy‘s personal and literary backgrounds.It then stages a comprehensive literature review both internationally and domesitically.It proceeds to historizing allegory and introduces its characteristics and functions.Finally,this chapter states the research purpose,the structural layout and significance of this dissertation.Chapter One focuses on the fragmentational elements of Suttree.Fragmentation is an intrinsic feature of allegorical text,which is determined by both the ruinous reality and the distorted people living within it.The protagonist wanders along the streets of Knoxville,a ruinous city,and observes its vicissitudes.His interaction with poor white people and the African American people is not only the major theme of Suttree,but also a metaphor of racial relations in the American South.Chapter Two explores the mupltiple layers and ambigious meanings of Blood Meridian.Since Blood Meridian,McCarthy began to write about the Wild West instead of the American South.Also,the theme of the novel is no longer confined to caring about individual human being,but the imperial myth of the west expansion in general.The novel is full of codes and the interpreting process is in fact the decoding process.Blood Meridian has multiple parallel themes i.e.allegory about culture,war and religion respectively.Horizontally,the novel‘s ambiguity is represented by its multiple themes.Vertically,its ambiguity is presented by carnival element within the text and a tragic meaning in depth.Under the cover of canivalization,the novel reveals hints of sadness.As an elegy,it reveals the imperial ideology behind the violence and bloodshed and a bloody history of 19^th century American frontier is vividly revealed.Chapter Three explores the melancholic and ruinous atmosphere of McCarthy border trilogy,which consists of All the Pretty Horses,The Crossing and Cities on the Plain.Stylistically speaking,border trilogy possesses a melancholic tone.Melancholy and allegory are mutual complementarities because they are both concerned with the sense of absence,loss and past.This chapter argues that the border trilogy presents complex and polyphonic pastoral style.It displays the picaresque tradition of western cowboys,how they yearn for the ideal pastoral lifestyle,how they linger between pastoral ideal and urban civilization,and,how they give up pastoral myth and embrace the modern technology.During their quests in the west,the protagonists fail to reconstruct their identity as cowboys and also have the distinctive experience of melancholia.As a man of letters who grew up in the south and lived in the west for the rest of his life,McCarthy casts as both insider and outsider of the wild west and contemplates on the contemporary American western pastoral culture allegorically.Chapter Four investigates McCarthy‘s latest novel The Road.It is an allegory about the past,present and future.Besides writing about death and violence,McCarthy alters his writing style by writing about love in the post-apocalyptic world,thus highlighting redemptive function of allegory.The Road takes on the traits of Western novel,but put the scene into the future.Meanwhile,this chapter argues that the novel constructs a post-modernist meta-alleogy,namely representing both the epistemological and ontological crisis in the present world.It then states that The Road belongs to the genre of post-apocalyptic writing and the imagination and prediction of the future is the auther‘s projection towards mankind.In brief,The Road is a post-allegory which is post-western,post-modernist and post-apocalyptic,thus incarnating the redemptive function of modern allegory and showing the author‘s deep concern for humanity.The last part is the conclusion.It firstly summarizes the previous four chapters and then states the significance of anaylizing the themes of McCarthy‘s novels from the perspective of allegory.The intriguing story may be the thing that attracts the readers while the essence of McCarthy‘s novels is the allegorical evidence hidden among the lines.The author‘s gifted writing skill and profound themes altogether make McCarthy one of the most influential writers in 20^th century American literature.