A Study On Spatial Narrative Of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy(1933-)is one of the most predominant novelists of contemporary American literature who has shined since All Pretty Horses in 1992 and established his unshakable position in American literary world by virtue of the "Border Trilogy".McCarthy has successively published twelve novels,five screenplays and many short stories and plays since his first writing.Blood Meridian,published in 1985,is widely recognized as McCarthy’s magnum opus and even labelled "the Great American Novel".McCarthy’s early works featured southern gothic.Blood Meridian is the turning point of his literary career towards western novels.Taking the western expansion in the United Sates west during the 19th century as the background,the story fully restores the true world of the west in US-Mexico border in history.McCarthy’s subversion and reconstruction of the traditional romantic west and deconstruction of the spirit of the American west are strongly manifested in the story.However,most studies concerning this novel mainly focus on the theme and characterization in the novel.As studies on narration are mainly centered on historical and post-modern perspectives,spatial narrative in the novel is ignored.Few scholars systematically analyze the west constructed in the novel as a whole from the perspective of spatial narrative.Therefore,the thesis aims to restore the truthful western borderland in McCarthy’s eyes from spatial perspective and explore McCarthy’s multi-level deconstruction of the romantic west and criticism of American imperialism.Based on spatial theories of Lefebvre,Foucault and other theorists,the thesis analyzes the physical space,psychological space and social space in Blood Meridian from the perspective of spatial narrative,and examines McCarthy’s all-round deconstruction of the traditional West.The major findings of the thesis are summarized as the following aspects.First,in physical space of the novel,the natural space in the west is endowed with extreme masculinity,while the living space lacks femininity.Meanwhile,through the superposition and juxtaposition of spatial images,the natural space of the west is a metaphor for the deconstruction of the image of the United States,the romantic fantasy of the west and the civilization process of the western frontier,while the living space serves as a metaphor for the deconstruction of anthropocentrism.Second,in psychological space of the novel,Judge Holden and the kid are two typical representatives of scalp hunters living in the western space.Holden’s symbolic image of his psychological space is Satan.All his deeds in the west psychologically reflect his evil essence,his strong desire for suzerain and toxic masculinity,which are as well represented by his locations and surroundings around him in physical space.The opposite is the kid’s spiritual pursuit of morality in his psychological space,which is inspired by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s priori morality.The starry sky,which parallels the moral law in Kant’s heart,in the physical space of the novel is also the representation of the kid’s psychological space and the spiritual symbol of the kid’s moral pursuit.However,due to the impact of living environment,the kid finally fails in the pursuit of moral spirit because of the unbearable violence and evil.Third,social space of the novel is displayed through power discourse space and capitalistic expansion space.In the Holden-centered power discourse space of social space,Holden uses his knowledge,discourse and other means to construct his own authoritative discourse and power;in capitalistic expansion space,McCarthy’s revelation of the actual progress of capitalistic expansion deconstructs Turner’s "frontier myth" of the west.The innovation of the thesis is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.First,from the perspective of spatial narrative,the thesis analyzes the multi-directional construction of the western space in Blood Meridian,which enriches the current research perspective of this novel.Second,in physical space,the thesis combines natural space and living space with masculinity and femininity respectively and analyzes their own spatial narrative functions;the physical space is used to represent the psychological space of characters,to reflect the interrelation and inseparable relationship between physical space and psychological space;moreover,in social space,the thesis focuses on man-dominated power discourse space and capitalistic expansion space dominated by social relations in order to clarify the complicated social space in the US-Mexico border.The analysis of the thesis on the three spatial levels progresses layer by layer and expands the dimension of the application of space studies in specific novels.Third,it summarizes McCarthy’s view of space of western border in the novel,examines McCarthy’s thinking about western border and criticism of imperialism,and enriches the academic research on McCarthy.The thesis provides a new angle for studies on Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian and contributes to studies on Blood Meridian at home and abroad.Hopefully,it would provide reference for further studies on McCarthy and Blood Meridian and shed some light on studies on western novels.