McCarthy, Cormac - John Emil Sepich (essay date summer 1992)
John Emil Sepich (essay date summer 1992)
SOURCE: Sepich, John Emil. “‘What Kind of Indians Was Them?’: Some Historical Sources in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.” Southern Quarterly 30, no. 4 (summer 1992): 93-110.
[In the following essay, Sepich documents the historical context of Blood Meridian, particularly relying on General Samuel Emery Chamberlain's memoir My Confession.]
A number of critics have remarked that Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is based on “history.”1 In fact, the dust jacket of the novel's hardcover edition states flatly that Glanton, Holden and “a number of their followers … actually existed, and various accounts of their exploits can be found in chronicles of the period.” An under-informed reading of Blood Meridian is comparable to the kid's question to Sproule, just after their filibustering expedition to Sonora has been devastated by an Indian attack:...
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