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 noble array of worldviews all competing together in the larger narrative framework of the novel. These are non only expressed through the life of the protagonist billy club Parham and his brother Boyd, but also in the narratives of the many people they encounter on their horseback journeys through the hot desert sands of Mexico. Critic Robert L. Jarrett, consort 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 visions or tales are individual, highly particularized, hence the requisite 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 reading and in its inclusion of regional and professional dialects, but it is also divided among contradictory ideological, philosophical, and ethical visions that resist easy integration into a unified political orientation by readers or critics (Jarrett, 147). In my own reading of The Crossing, however, I propose that a compelling case can be built for an overarching view of existentialism-if not its marriage 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 discipline of discussion, visions of actively participating in the tearing down of creeds and the intentional destruction 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 McC arthy. 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/research/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 validated 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.