4 ms·
My first real job interview (biodiesel QA/QC lab tech) devolved into a discussion of Blood Meridian wherein my future boss asserted that The Judge was a mass ps
by black6 5y ago
My first real job interview (biodiesel QA/QC lab tech) devolved into a discussion of Blood Meridian wherein my future boss asserted that The Judge was a mass psychogenic hallucinatory manifestation of the Glanton Gang's deflecting their collective guilt for the atrocities they committed throughout the novel.
- damontal 5y agoThe priest’s story of the gang first coming upon him sitting on a rock in the middle of the desert like he had been waiting for them somewhat supports that. “There he set on a rock in the middle of the greatest desert you’d ever want to see. Just perched on this rock like a man waitin for a coach.”
- black6 5y agoI re-read the novel after my interview with that idea in mind and got a Sixth Sense vibe surrounding judge Holden in the way the character interacts with the others.
- bigirondba 5y agoThat is such an excellent interpretation, I’m sort of convinced that’s the author’s intent now. I’d always gone for a more magical realism approach because of how often his supernatural demeanor is focused on, and because it dovetails neatly with Anton Chigurh being a similar thing in No Country for Old Men.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> I’m sort of convinced that’s the author’s intent now. The author is capable of writing with precise clarity about even the darkest subjects. IMHO, if Mr McCarthy intended there to be an unambiguous meaning, then he would have put it in the novel. he did not, therefor, it is intentionally ambiguous, for us to ponder - above I compared this to David Lynch who is known for avoiding precise explanation his films. But that is an excellent interpretation.
- defen 5y agoThat's a great theory but it doesn't explain the Judge's appearance in the revival tent early in the story.
- boppo1 5y agoI never quite put together what was going on in that last scene. Perhaps my vocabulary isn't quite there.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> my future boss asserted that The Judge was a mass psychogenic hallucinatory manifestation of the Glanton Gang's deflecting their collective guilt I recently finished _Blood Meridian_ and then read some analyses of the ending, particularly how the Judge waxes lyrical about "The Dance" of violence as a higher human activity, while the kid dismisses it as base: "even a dumb animal can dance" just as he is sucked back into it. I do not think that McCarthy intends there to be a single correct reading of what The Judge is; he is inexplicable, uncanny and ambiguous like something from a David Lynch film; however this "manifestation of guilt" reading has to be among the main contenders latent in the book's meanings. Alternately, the Judge is just a man, the Judge is Satan incarnate, the Judge is chaos and lust for violence, the Judge is a metaphor, the Judge is some other natural force, the Judge is some other supernatural force, the Judge has a deal with Satan, the Judge has tapped into some other supernatural force.
- alangibson 5y agoI always assumed the Judge was a an avatar of the White Man in the west. The giveaway is how he uses legalism to dazzle people. Plus he knows how to make gunpowder and gets sunburned easily.