What Cormac McCarthy Saw When He Saw Evil

“When asked to describe Chigurh, the few people lucky enough to have encountered him and survived claimed he that ‘looked like anybody.'”

This essay is dedicated to Justin Unsworth, in friendship and gratitude.

Introduction

“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

The character Judge Holden, Blood Meridian

There are few writers in history who have the kind of talent Cormac McCarthy does—not to mention the sheer audacity to speak with a Biblical level of authority in the 21st century. Among the deepest themes of McCarthy’s work is his analysis of good and evil. An intense analysis of what evil is—and why the human race has been so utterly unprepared to resist it—is a prominent question in his later works such as The Road and in earlier, lesser books such as Child of God. However, nowhere is it more directly the focus than in the twinned works Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men, both of which feature unstoppable and ultimately victorious antagonists of Miltonian power and attraction. At a time when men with authority murder in the streets and world leaders call for military intervention against their own citizens, it is worth considering McCarthy’s lessons.

The Gravity of Emptiness

Blood Meridian centers on the immutable figure of Judge Holden, a gigantic albino, who joins the real life Glanton gang in exterminating Native Americans. Originally working at the behest of the American and Mexican governments—under the influence of the judge—the gang becomes a terror squad operating only for themselves, before imploding in rage and violence. Throughout the novel, the judge commits acts of startling brutality, including the sexual abuse and murder of children. Despite this, he comes across as an unrepentant Mephistopheles, knowledgeable of all the things of the world. The judge knows countless languages and skills, and he comments with such tremendous insight on the crumbling moral architecture of the world that even the few conflicted characters in the book cannot contradict him. He is a scientist who collects samples as the gang travels, chronicling the constituent features of existence.