Religious motifs in Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Blood Meridian”

This study aims to identify the specific ways in which religious motifs function within the narrative structure and imagery of Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Blood Meridian”. The article examines these religious motifs and their associated images within the context of the Southern Gothic literary tradition, considering both cultural-historical and philosophical dimensions. The research’s novelty lies in its selection of a subject largely unexplored in domestic literary criticism, as well as in the application of an analytical perspective previously unused for examining this novel. This approach has enabled the identification of the synthetic nature of McCarthy’s religious imagery, which is constructed from a broad intertextual field encompassing Christian and Gnostic motifs and allusions to the philosophy of the ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus of Ephesus, all interwoven and engaging in dialogic relationships. The research demonstrates that religious themes in the novel are closely linked to philosophical and political aspects, and the extensive range of allusions and references allows for an interpretation of the work as a parable exploring the limits of evil and the ontological nature of will.