Reader Sympathy: The Kid, the Narrator, and the Reader

Kiefer, Christian. "Unneighborly Behavior: Blood Meridian, Lonesome Dove and the Problem of Reader Sympathy." Southwestern American Literature 33.1 (Fall 2007), 39-52.

Kiefer takes a look at the folly of familiarity suggested by Blood Meridian in the context of the popular Western novel, specifically Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Both novels were published in 1985 and both incorporate the same terrain and similar tribes of Indians (and the prequels to Lonesome Dove even involve the same time period and mention the mercenary scalp-hunting), and Kiefer proposes that considering these similarities in juxtaposition with the the unique thematic concerns and vastly different narrative styles of the novels presents an interesting study in reader sympathy in relation to the Western. Kiefer is especially interested in discussing the subtly of the differences between Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove in relation to the reader's experience in order to illuminate the different perspectives on the past and present that both novels represent. Identifying the moral basis of the heroic Western as appealing to reader sympathy (as supported by Lonesome Dove's commercial success compared to that of Blood Meridian), Kiefer examines the ways in which McCarthy uses and alters such Western idioms as morally justified and restrained violence to challenge reader sympathy. Kiefer quotes from the two works and compares the level of conscious reflection of the characters as well as the different approaches to similar conflicts (such as those between rangers and those between a protagonist and a barkeeper). Kiefer sees Blood Meridian's violence as "a violence, in the end, that appears to teach nothing, that imparts no message, other than that violence itself is the great and terrible solution to all, that it is a constant in the affairs of men, and that any act that is not inherently violent is perhaps no true act at all. (42). By exploiting the modern reader's expectations of "stock characters" of history that popular culture (of which Lonesome Dove is an example) has provided, McCarthy encourages a rethinking of not just literary conventions but historical conventions as well; Kiefer proposes that the challenge to reader sympathy in Blood Meridian "necessitates the construction of a new interpretive system" (49) while even criticizing such systems by criticizing itself.

Though many critics have asserted that Blood Meridian is an atypical Western, and cannot in fact be reduced to genre writing at all, the suspended disbelief or disregard for the popular genre in Kiefer's analysis invites a ground-level examination of what is involved in the reader-novel relationship. If characters "who attempt to act with morality tend to be met with death or horror, and what God exists...seems vacant at best or malevolent at worst" (41), the traditional sensitivity or development of understanding of value system that a reader might expect to experience (in a protagonist or anti-hero figure) is thwarted. The kid's violence and the lack of insight into his psyche by the time his first unconscionably violent encounters are described do not allow the reader to forge expected relationships with the text, and are forced to reconsider what the narrator's treatment requires of his audience. The reader must follow the kid's actions and thus engage in a kind of bloody pilgrimage whose direction and reasoning is not self-evident. The lack of binary oppositions in the novel are also identified by Kiefer as challenging reader sympathy, because taking sides is a challenge. The simultaneous alienation and alignment encouraged by the narrator's treatment of the kid illuminates the way that Blood Meridian prompts the reader to consider ethical questions about understanding the past and the possibility of choosing a "good" or "better" path. Kiefer also points out that the narrator has a high degree of self-consciousness, and that the judge is symptomatic of the "anti-text" that the novel also contains (50) as revealed, for example, when he proclaims that “men’s memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not” (Blood Meridian 330). If the judge is an aspect of the narrator's own uncertainty, the instability of familiarity and authority becomes an even more fundamental issue of the narrative.

The Conscious Complexity of the Narrator-Reader Relationship

Schopen, Bernard A. “‘They Rode On’: Blood Meridian and the Art of Narrative.’” Western American Literature 33.3 (1995): 179-194.

Bernard Schopen considers the captivating and profoundly disturbing effects of Blood Meridian in terms of its formal elements, and the “manifold but integrated artistry” (188) of the narrative in particular. Though he sees the narrator as exploring “the mystery of evil in human hearts” (191), Schopen is interested not so much in the themes of Blood Meridian as the way in which those themes are constructed and conveyed, and how the construction is in itself central to the meaning of the novel. The “literariness” of the narrator, his direct addresses, his acknowledgements of uncertainty, and his alienation from the world that he describes (the rarity of internal glimpses) create a sense that the narrator is “a consciousness in search of meaning” (181-182). “Far from formless” (184), Schopen finds that the narrative, this search for meaning, is embedded in the complex structure of the story which is in fact imposed by the narrator (186). This control is exemplified by textual and structural patterns such as repeated images and phrases, recurring shifts in tense and tone, and nesting and echoing dramatic frames. Through “repetition-within-variation” (188), the narrator poses his troubling vision and questions from many angles. Thus the narrative, the great art of Blood Meridian, has such a powerful effect because its language and composition have multidirectional force, ensuring that the reader feels the “recognition” that Schopen asserts is “effected by all great literature” (191), and that this recognition is the awareness of a shared uncertainty rather than some absolute truth.

Schopen’s reading of Blood Meridian offers insights into the power that the narrative exerts over the reader, as well as the effort required by the reader to understand the complexities of the narrative. By stating that “recognition” on the part of the reader is one of the greatest achievements of powerful literature (191), Schopen identifies the reader-narrator relationship as difficult to forge but essential. “Carefully controlled,” the language employed by the narrator “carefully controls the reader’s response, producing contextually appropriate effects ranging from the horrific to the humorous” (181). But if the form of Blood Meridian “nearly becomes” its meaning (183), the reader must not just be controlled but also attend to intricate detail and be comfortable with a large degree of uncertainty in order to understand the narrator’s preoccupations. To think outside of the facts of the story to the method of its telling, the reader must be aware of but avoid intoxication with the language, just as the kid (to some extent) sees through Judge Holden by maintaining a wariness of the judge’s rhetoric. Although Schopen does not discuss the rhetorical power of the judge, dismissing him (or the kid) as a protagonist because of his "lack of agency in the narrated events" (185), Schopen's exclusion of the judge’s worldview from the complexities of the narrator’s voice, and especially his evaluation of the narrator as an authoritative seeker, establish the narrator as distinct and even in opposition to the judge. Schopen asserts that the narrator poses fundamental questions and rejects traditional answer systems (191), but in the “inexorable onwardness” of his inquiry does not try to replace such systems. The judge lacks the negative capability of the narrator, maintaining an uncompromising philosophy of war and destiny (Blood Meridian 248-249) and using his breadth of knowledge and command of language to convert his listeners to submission rather than to convince and confront them into questioning. Schopen’s positing of the narrator as “an atemporal observer of a world gone horribly wrong, a world populated by a species grown so alien to him that their inner existence he cannot assess and so does not access” (182) emphasizes that the relationship between the narrator and reader may be more ethically significant than any existing between characters or between the reader and a character.