Cormac McCarthy

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Cormac McCarthy

• 1933-present

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• Naturalist
• Theres no such thing as life without
  bloodshed. I think the notion that a species can
  be improved in some way, that everyone could live
  in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those
  who are afflicted with this notion are the first
  ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your
  desire that it be this way will enslave you and
  make your life vacuous (Woodward 30)

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• McCarthys dark philosophy is based around the
  existence of a impersonal force of pure evil
  found both inside of us and surrounding us. This
  evil leads to the inevitable bloodshed all
  creatures are doomed to face.

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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vmhXJcfczNIc

• What is he talking about when he says youve
  been putting it up your whole life you just
  didnt know it
• What does the fact that it is just another coin
  show? The coin dont have no say its just you
• What does this shopkeepers undeserving encounter
  show?

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• Born July 20th 1933
• Moved to Knoxville
• Moved by surroundings
• What happened in these shacks fueled his
  imagination more than anything that happened
  inside his own family (Woodward 31)
• Joined Navy
• Several awards

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• appreciates wildnessin animals, landscapes, and
  peopleand although he is a well born, well
  spoken, well read man of 58 (78 now) years, he
  has spent most of his adult life outside the ring
  of the campfire (Woodward 28)
• Aware that gifted American writers don't have to
  endure the kind of neglect and hardship that have
  been his, McCarthy has chosen to be hard headed
  about the terms of his success. As he
  commemorated what is passing from memory-the
  lore, people and language of a pre-modern age-he
  seems immensely proud to be the kind of writer
  who has almost ceased to exist (Woodward 31)

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• I have only one way to live. It doesnt allow
  special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this
  case to small purpose. Most people dont believe
  that there can be such a person. You can see
  what a problem that must be for them. How to
  prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge
  the existence of. Do you understand? When I
  came into your life your life was over. It had a
  beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the
  end. You can say things could have turned out
  differently. That they could have been some
  other way. But what does that mean? They are
  not some other way. They are this way. Youre
  asking that I second say the world. Do you see?
• Yes, She said, sobbing. I do. I truly do.
• Good, he said. Thats good. Then he shot her.
  

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• the characters in Carson McCuellers work made
  those in the Faulkner canon look like the folks
  next door, but such tame comparisons are
  meaningless when one comes to speak of McCarthys
  personae (Sullivan 342)

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• Do you think God knows whats happenin?
• I expect he does.
• You think he can stop it?
• No. I dont.
• When, past his crisis, he speaks with an
  attending priest he tells him that what he has
  learned close to death is that god is not a
  thing. Nothing ever stops moving.

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• The papers said it was a crime of passion but
  there wasnt passion to it. Hed been dating
  this girl, young as she was. He was nineteen.
  And he told me he had been plannin to kill
  somebody for about as long as he could remember.
  Said that if they turned him out hed do it
  again. Said he knew he was goin to hell. Told
  it to me out of his own mouth. I dont know what
  to make of that. I surely dontI really believe
  he knew he was going to be in hell in fifteen
  minutes. I believe that. And Ive thought about
  it a lot. He was not hard to talk to. Called me
  sheriff. But I didnt know what to say to him.
  What do you say to a man that by his own
  admission has no soul?