A Study Of Chaos In Blood Meridian From The Perspective Of Chaos Theory

As one of the most influential contemporary American writers,Cormac Mc Carthy is known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique narrative style,recognizable by the sparse use of punctuation.His representative novel Blood Meridian,or The Evening Redness in the West is a complex and spectacular novel which has been analyzed from multiple perspectives,including new historicism,post-modernism,and eco-criticism.Chaos theory,originally a branch of mathematics that studies the behavior of dynamic systems which are highly sensitive to initial conditions,can be innovatively used to analyze the chaotic phenomena in Blood Meridian.Considering the possibility of chaos theory in the exploration of Mc Carthy’s works and the fact that few works at home and abroad study Blood Meridian through this theory,this thesis attempts to apply this unique perspective to analyzing the chaotic representations described in Blood Meridian,so as to expose the messy and disorderly social phenomena in it.This novel is coping with various subject matters,including chaotic environments,gratuitous violence,the random fate of characters,and the massacre of the Natives.Through close reading,this thesis analyzes the chaotic phenomena presented in the aspects of nature,society,and the character’s destiny in the novel,revealing that the Western world in Mc Carthy’s works is a random,chaotic and uncertain world,dominated by evil and ubiquitous violence.The characters’ destiny cannot be controlled by themselves,but by chance and randomness.Blood Meridian reveals Mc Carthy’s reflection on war,violence,and the essence of Western expansion,as well as his post-humanist ideas.The brutal violence and massacre committed by Judge Holden and the gang of scalp hunters suggest that they had broken through the limitations of humanity.They commit a variety of crimes outside the boundaries of conventional morality with a kind of ruthless violence.The portrayal of post-humanism in Blood Meridian raises essential questions about the nature of humanity and our relationship to the natural world.