Date of Award
8-2017
Degree Type
Report
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
English
Committee Chair(s)
Nathan Straight
Committee
Nathan Straight
Committee
Judson Finley
Committee
Keri Holt
Abstract
This literary analysis expands the scholarly canon concerning Cormac McCarthy’s regional writing by identifying the purpose of pictographs and petroglyphs in Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West (1985). Not only do pictographs and petroglyphs tie the narrative to place, but they create a commentary regarding the erasure of Native American histories in the United States. These images record Native American memory and presence in the landscape, and by referencing them, McCarthy confronts concepts of exposure and shame, which facilitates conversations concerning Native American genocide. A close analysis of character interaction with and scene placement of these images supports this argument. I trace the shift of medium used to record pictographs and petroglyphs with emphasis on Plains Indian adornment, ledger drawings, and rock images, and I give particular attention to Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, and Shoshone actors in the United States’ national drama of land acquisition, otherwise known as Manifest Destiny.
Recommended Citation
Dilg, Cami Ann, "The past that was differs little from the past that was not: Pictographs and Petroglyphs in Cormac McCarthys Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West" (2017). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023. 957.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/957
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