Cormac McCarthy's violent destinies : the poetics of determinism and fatalism / Brad Bannon and John Vanderheide.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bannon, Brad, 1980- author.

Vanderheide, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-2023--Criticism and interpretation.

McCarthy, Cormac.

Free will and determinism in literature.

Fate and fatalism in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations ;

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Knoxville, TN : The University of Tennessee Press, [2017]

Summary:

Since the release of his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965, Cormac McCarthy's characters, intricate plots, and sometimes forbidding settings have captivated the attention of countless readers while exploring deep philosophical problems, including that of human agency and free will. This multiauthor volume places the full range of his novels in historical, literary, and cultural contexts and shifts the focus of critical engagement to questions of determinism, fatalism, and free will. Essayists over the course of eleven chapters show how McCarthy's protagonists and antagonists often confront grotesque realities and destinies, and find themselves prey to incessant subconscious and uncontrollable forces. In the process, these scholars reveal that McCarthy's works arrive thoroughly tinctured with religious complexities, ambiguities of ancient and modern thinking, and profoundly splintered notions of morality, freedom, and ethics. Consequently, McCarthy's philosophical depth, mastery of language, and sometimes shocking psychological analysis are brought into sharp focus for longtime readers. With new scholarship from eminent critics, an accessible style, and precise attention to the lesser-known works, Cormac McCarthy's Violent Destinies re-introduces the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's work under the twin themes of fatalism and determinism. 

Contents:

Foreword / Rick Wallach

Introduction / Brad Bannon and John Vanderheide

Romance and naturalism in Cormac McCarthy's All the pretty horses / James Giles

"All things fought": fate, violence, and the illusion of a Lockean social contract in Cormac McCarthy's Child of God / Woods Nash

God, evil, suffering, and human destiny in the Border trilogy: learning from the "Teachers" / Dennis l. Sansom

Guns and material determinism in The road / Rasmus R. Simonsen

Holden and Chigurh: Cormac McCarthy and the ethics of power / Adrian Mioc

Mysteries of the meridian revealed: McCarthy's anachronistic tarot / Robert Kottage

Doom's adumbration: Suttree and the problem of fatalism / John Vanderheide

"A clamorous tide of unforeseen consequence": Heimarmene in Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy / Petra Mundik

Fatal loss and teleological blindness in McCarthy's Tennessee novels / Brad Bannon

Freaking determinism: the image of the wild man in Blood meridian / Tom Cull

"Archives of our own devising": structural fatality in Cormac McCarthy's Blood meridian or The evening redness in the west / Theo Finigan.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-62190-416-4

OCLC:

1394114823