Focalization, Speech Presentation And Implied Ethics In Blood Meridian

The novel Blood Meridian is a masterpiece by Cormac Mc Carthy, one of the greatest contemporary American writers. Based on the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848,the novel shows us a desperate world which is awash with violence and bloodiness. Since its publication, it has attracted extensive study of western scholars from multiple perspectives while Chinese scholars have not paid enough attention to it until recent years.Much of the criticism of Blood Meridian explores the historical and ideological meanings contained in the novel, it claims that Blood Meridian not only exposes the cruelty of the Mexican-American War but also ironizes the hypocrisy of Manifest Destiny.Although many critics set out to study this novel from new perspectives, yet most of them just focus on its content, neglecting the interaction between form and content. As a consequence, few people pay attention to its narrative features. On the other hand,arguments on the ethical connotations implied in the novel never cease. Some scholars tend to regard this novel as one of the representative works of nihilism. They hold that Blood Meridian lacks ethics since it only presents pure killings. Though some others illustrate its implied ethical meanings, still they fail to figure out the author's ethical judgments in the novel. Moreover, few critics make studies on its implied ethics from narrative perspectives.In fact, Cormac Mc Carthy not only presents clear ethical relations between characters but also conveys his ethical judgments via different focalization types and speech presentation modes. Therefore, this thesis attempts to analyze the narrative features of Blood Meridian under the theoretical framework of Gerald Genette's focalization and Leech and Short's speech presentation, aiming at illustrating what kind of ethical relations Mc Carthy presents and what his ethical judgments really are. Besides,this thesis intends to help people get fully aware of the crucial role of the author's employment of focalization skills and speech presentation strategies in presenting the implied ethics of the novel. This awareness will encourage people to pay close attention to the narrative features of the novel and delve the author's narrative strategies further. In a word, thenarrative studies on this novel will undoubtedly enrich Blood Meridian studies.