Nihilism and Existentialism in Cormac McCarthys The Crossing Essay

Nihilism and existentialism in Cormac McCarthys The CrossingCormac McCarthys second book in The Border Trilogy offers an sensational array of worldviews all competing together in the larger narrative manikin of the novel. These ar not only if expressed through the life of the suspensor Billy Parham and his brother Boyd, but also in the narratives of the many quite a little they encounter on their horseback journeys through the hot desert smoothen of Mexico. Critic Robert L. Jarrett, associate professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, suggests the same in Cormac McCarthy, noting that Despite the claims of the ex-priest in The Crossing that all mens tales are one, such visual modalitys or tales are individual, highly particularized, hence the necessity for the interpolated tales, each containing a unique vision of the world (147). He goes on to suggest that The McCarthy novel is not only stylistically divided in its narration and in its inclusion of regional a nd professional dialects, but it is also divided among contradictory ideological, philosophical, and ethical visions that deny easy integration into a unified ideology by readers or critics (Jarrett, 147). In my own reading of The Crossing, however, I propose that a get case can be built for an overarching view of existentialism-if not its coupling to the dark-skinned nihilism-under the watchful and perhaps complacent eye of God as the Unknowable, Impersonal Absolute the wholly Other. The minute the word nihilism is introduced into the composition of discussion, visions of actively participating in the tearing down of creeds and the intentional dying of all moral, philosophical, and religious values present themselves to the mind. Nihilism to many ... ...pp. 31-41. DISCovering Authors. Gale Group, 1999. Reproduced in Discovering Collection. Farmington Hills, Mich. Gale Group. October, 2001. Accessed July 27, 2003. http//www.galenet.com/servlet/DC/. Jarrett, Robert L. Cormac Mc Carthy. New York Twain Publishers, 1997. McCarthy, Cormac. The Crossing. New York, Knopf 1994. Pratt, Alan. Nihilism. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed July 27, 2003. http//www.utm.edu/ inquiry/iep/n/nihilism.htm. Priola, Marty. The Textual McCarthy I Christian readings of the novels. The Cormac McCarthy Home Pages. Accessed July 27, 2003. http//www.cormacmccarthy.com/archives/textual.htm. (Note Link no longer valid as of January 06, 2004.) Wyatt, Christopher Scott. Existentialism An Introduction. Christopher Scott Wyatt. Accessed July 27, 2003. http//www.tameri.com/csw/exist/exist.html.