A Peculiar High Synthesis: Cormac McCarthy's Child of God and the Community-Created Other

Abstract

abstract:This article examines the case of modernity (as an enclosing device) and the impact its pervasive epistemological assumptions have on its subjects. In particular, I propose several heavily freighted examples from Cormac McCarthy's Child of God in order to foreground the ways in which the central character Lester Ballard's ideas arise from the social circumstances out of which he comes and from which he takes his cues. To do so, this article first contextualizes modernity and its system of social and official recursiveness where authenticity is compromised before moving to specific scenes from the novel. It examines three incidents of Ballard's actions, including his encounters with and encouragement by the legal system, his performances of hypermasculinity and the endorsement of rape culture, and his voyeurism before returning to the two accusatory quotations where the novel addresses the reader to clarify the position of our social responsibility.