Cormac Mccarthy's The Blood Meridian

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Recommended: Violence in children's literature

In The Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, the kid goes through many tough times starting off from a very young age. The kid in some cases has a taste for mindless violence that he fulfills often. The aggression the kid shows seems to come natural to him in a way that it seems to be in his nature to be a savage on a day to day basis. The kid is born evil and becoming an expert in acts of savage violence throughout the story. The acts of savage violence the kid portrays throughout the first couple chapters including the way he treats the barkeep, make it hard not to believe the kid is evil. The scene starts out when the kid walks in the bar and right off the bat hears the barkeep talking in Spanish. The kid doesn’t like people that speak Spanish because of the time period. The boy then asks if there is anything he could do to get a few drinks. After the kid sweeps the bar thoroughly and …show more content…

After being beat up by Toadvine, the kid is asked to help Toadvine kill Old Sidney. The kid agrees to help Toadvine and they go into the hotel. In the hotel they go up to Old Sidney’s room and catch it on fire. When they do Old Sidney runs out and Toadvine starts beating him. Toadvine begin to pry the eyeball out of Old Sidney’s eye and is holding him down when he says to the kid “aw, kick him, honey”, and so the kid kicked old Sidney (McCarthy, 13). The clerk then runs upstairs and says “Toadvine you son of a bitch” (McCarthy, 13). When he does Toadvine kicks him in the throat and he falls down the steps. The kid, while walking down the steps, kicks the already wounded clerk further down the stairs. The kid was never provoked by anything to treat the clerk the way he did. Such unprovoked violence can only come from a person that is born evil. After that the kid, showing no remorse, jumps over the clerk and heads out the door to continue his mindless acts of violence

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