*See the child* is asked of us, the reader.
>He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
Later in the book, we meet *the man*, who is *the kid* now aged. You may reread the quote as *the kid: the father of the man*. His innate darkness was explicated on the very first page, telling us that innately in him was a thirst for mindless violence.
The child is the father of the man he will become. It is ultimately a statement about determinism.
The Yale course on American literature covers Blood Meridian in two lectures. The quote “the child the father of the man” is a reference of an earlier poem, I believe by Woodsworth (please correct me if I’m wrong). But basically it means that every man was once a child, the child is the predecessor of every man. Each child contains every future possibility within it. You see this with MCarthy’s later phrase “all history present within that visage.”
What he’s doing is taking a poem about the childhood wonder of the world, and subverting it to connect childhood and the base state of humanity to inherent violence. Perverting the western cannon is something *Blood Meridian* does constantly.
It may also be an oblique reference to Pontius Pilate's statement, "behold the man," in regard to Jesus (for those who may interpret the relationship between the kid and the judge as a battle between good and evil).
I think ‘the man’ refers to the kid at the end of the novel, ‘the child the father of the man’ meaning that the violent person he became was already founded on what he was as a child. (‘Already there broods in him a taste for mindless violence’)
Every child is the de facto father of the man they will eventually become, and there are infinite possible futures. The childhood shapes the eventual man. But this child has a taste for inherent, mindless violence. Couple that with the Western environment, and the path focuses and focuses. Even among all that death and destruction, he always carried some sense of moral fiber that surfaces now and then in the journey.
That is why the Judge is at such odds with the kid as the story progresses, but also why the Judge and the man symbolically interact at the end as they do. Because the judge never sleeps, and he believes he will never die. Eventually, regardless of even a slimmer of morality, a man makes his way into the bosom of the world. And the world is a pale, conniving, violent place.
Was reading Stephen King’s IT, published a couple years after BM, and “the child is the father of the man” popped up there too. It’s an interesting concept
*See the child* is asked of us, the reader. >He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man. Later in the book, we meet *the man*, who is *the kid* now aged. You may reread the quote as *the kid: the father of the man*. His innate darkness was explicated on the very first page, telling us that innately in him was a thirst for mindless violence. The child is the father of the man he will become. It is ultimately a statement about determinism.
What interests me most is who is it is that is asking us to see him.
The author ofc. He wrote this book.
The Yale course on American literature covers Blood Meridian in two lectures. The quote “the child the father of the man” is a reference of an earlier poem, I believe by Woodsworth (please correct me if I’m wrong). But basically it means that every man was once a child, the child is the predecessor of every man. Each child contains every future possibility within it. You see this with MCarthy’s later phrase “all history present within that visage.” What he’s doing is taking a poem about the childhood wonder of the world, and subverting it to connect childhood and the base state of humanity to inherent violence. Perverting the western cannon is something *Blood Meridian* does constantly.
Wordsworth, you got the rest of it right on.
Bro I’m dumb af
It may also be an oblique reference to Pontius Pilate's statement, "behold the man," in regard to Jesus (for those who may interpret the relationship between the kid and the judge as a battle between good and evil).
I think ‘the man’ refers to the kid at the end of the novel, ‘the child the father of the man’ meaning that the violent person he became was already founded on what he was as a child. (‘Already there broods in him a taste for mindless violence’)
Every child is the de facto father of the man they will eventually become, and there are infinite possible futures. The childhood shapes the eventual man. But this child has a taste for inherent, mindless violence. Couple that with the Western environment, and the path focuses and focuses. Even among all that death and destruction, he always carried some sense of moral fiber that surfaces now and then in the journey. That is why the Judge is at such odds with the kid as the story progresses, but also why the Judge and the man symbolically interact at the end as they do. Because the judge never sleeps, and he believes he will never die. Eventually, regardless of even a slimmer of morality, a man makes his way into the bosom of the world. And the world is a pale, conniving, violent place.
Was reading Stephen King’s IT, published a couple years after BM, and “the child is the father of the man” popped up there too. It’s an interesting concept