Blood Meridian's Secret Time Traveling Revealed

I read Blood Meridian backward this past week and discovered an internal mirroring process within Cormac McCarthy's novel. In this video, I will present the massive secret contrasts embedded in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian! With this new interpretation, massive literary analysis opportunities start to open up! If you have any ideas please feel free to comment them!
Stay tuned for a breakdown of Blood Meridian's ending tomorrow!
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[@HideAndRead]

Just followed your channel this morning. I also went to the library and checked out and started reading Blood Meridian on a whim. Can't wait to watch this once I finish.

[@SneezyKeegz]

Did you finish? I just finished Blood Meridian 2 days ago. Can't get it out of my head lol.

[@WriteConscious]

Hope you loved it!

[@nounxyz]

A helpful (or unwelcome) thought is that this idea in Blood Meridian reflects the early ideas of the Christian faith that the Old Testament is a shadow of the new. The use repeating allegory and types (sacrifice, blood, wells, altars, war, prophecy, etc) is the same as the repeating leitmotifs in Blood Meridian. This idea was taken up particularly by Origen of Alexandria c. 185 - c. 253 although some consider him a heretic.

[@WriteConscious]

Thanks for this!

[@enriccoc7794]

my theory is that Cormac saw The Shining and thought Stanley Kubrick was pretty cool so he said I'm gonna make The Shining but it'll be a book in the wild west!

[@iammraat3059]

On point

[@WriteConscious]

Sadly he started on BM way before 1980!

[@ThisAintNoPipe]

Just finished the book and just shooting from the hip here: Could the Comanche attack and the Yuma massacre be mirrors of each other? And could the beheading of the filibuster captain (forgot his name) be a mirror of the doctor’s death?

[@WriteConscious]

Good insight. Six page difference between the Comanache and yuma massacre when mirrored.

[@workingtheories]

Maybe Blood Meridian is written chiastically. The chiasm was a popular literary structure in Hebraic writing. Robert Alter has written a lot about chiasms in the Old Testament . The idea is that the author works his way to a central point, then works his way back out of it again, and the working in and the working out mirror one another. The name of the structure is taken from the Greek name of the letter X, and the letter X is a visual representation of the working your way in/working your way out idea.

[@workingtheories]

By the way, Robert Alter has written about Cormac McCarthy.

[@workingtheories]

If you think of the entire novel as a chiasm, then the central event would be the vignette in the city of Chihuahua, I think. That could work, too, because they enter the city is heroes and leave as raiders and villains, having taken advantage of the very people that celebrated them. Working in and working out.

[@WriteConscious]

Agree, I like this theory!

[@christianvchacon]

I noticed a mirroring in The Passenger and Stella Maris. In the first chapter of The Passenger, when Bobby is first introduced, the start of the conversation goes like this: Bobby: How’s he doing? Tender: Doin okay. Bobby: What’s he want? Tender: The big sidecutters Then in Stella Maris, in the final chapter, the conversation starts like this: Therapist: How are you doing? Alicia: I’m okay. Therapist: I havent seen that sweater before. Alicia: It’s a loaner. Therapist: You dont have a coat, do you? Alicia: I’m not going anywhere. Therapist: I could bring you one. Alicia: Okay. What about galoshes? (There mirroring is of the asking how someone is, the “okay” response, and then the offering/getting of an object.)

[@WriteConscious]

Very very interesting!

[@mik9napkin598]

Have you heard of Mountains of Books (KZbin channel)? They do an excellent 3 part break down of Blood Meridian (and many others). Great channel, they deserve more attention.

[@mik9napkin598]

My issue with this sort of thinking is that once you decide it’s a mirror, youll naturally start bending meaning in your favour.

[@WriteConscious]

That could be said about any theory. This one has objective merit though.

[@christianvchacon]

The novel’s mirroring reminds me of paintings or portraits that mirror by having similar imagery on either side. It’s as if the novel’s use of that is like a beautiful paintings with a mirroring asthetic. (This is not to say a painting or portrait or book is only beautiful if it mirrors.)

[@WriteConscious]

Yes!!

[@jungastein3952]

I think there's a lot of TS Eliot, especially Four Quartets, in this novel. Nabokov's short stories too.

[@WriteConscious]

Yes!

[@baxtermaxtor]

Ouroboros

[@WriteConscious]

Yes!

[@Hermit_mouse]

I also obsess over this novel. What’s your take on page 297 when Toadvine makes six holes in the sand?

[@Vivaldi1Dvorak2]

Could be reference to a six shooter revolver. May be a reference to Jesus writing in the sand, but in the Gospel, it is not told what Jesus wrote.

[@beefjerkygod88]

That's pretty cool

[@WriteConscious]

Very cool!

[@adidabax6809]

Sounds also like watching the sun rise and set...

[@WriteConscious]

Yes, very beautiful.

[@barbarajohnson1442]

Well I think you are onto something, and maybe could be applied to The Passenger!?😮

[@WriteConscious]

Yes!

[@Cosmos142857]

Yeah, well kinda. It's the ever turning and whirling of the Universe. Demanding unconscious blood and suffering. All unconscious in the ever whirling dance wherein they all dance to the "caller's" tune. All but One. One. Now the Man, who was absorbed as the only usefull excrement. Humanity left to bid on the blood soaked hide. The husk. Alicia saw it and said, "Fuck that I won't play!" Nevertheless sayeth the Universe and moves on to the next hole. The next round...and all blindly follow.

[@WriteConscious]

Interesting

[@robertprestonsr2453]

Well... I feel that "the Kid" is actually the author's nod to the historical: "Billy the Kid"... so, to hint as proof of this, for example, why does McCarthy skip around so much in terms of time? He "ends" the story in about 1881, right?... Is this not about the time that the real "Billy the Kid" was supposedly shot dead?-- and this so-called shooting "death"-- was, and still is, surrounded by controversy and conspiracy theories...(do some research)... and also, ironically, the real "Billy the Kid's mother's maiden name was "McCarthy"...(look it up)... and he was raised by a single parent... farmed around much, and ran, to get away, early in his life... But why, in terms of history is there such a gap?... Why is the Civil War not mentioned? To me, McCarthy uses the passage of time quite broadly, as in time travelling all about as needed... He gets much in about the Glantons, but makes no mention of the Clantons... But at the "end" of the story, we get the passage on "holes"... and burning stones... and those who collect bones, and those who do not...?? This, I submit is NOT and ENDING... The Judge, it seems is left over to float about on a coffin, (which was made for a crazed man)... to ride on the seas of the prairies... so where is the END??... I want a sequel to explain everything...!!

[@VardaTruffle]

This is called the readerly vs writerly problem that Barthes first introduced. You have taken power away from the writer and created all these new interpretations and meanings that the original author’s intentions had nothing to do with. Interesting, no doubt. But a fundamental problem of hermeneutics and literature