• Login
    View Item 
    •   Athenaeum Home
    • University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations
    • University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Athenaeum Home
    • University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations
    • University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    From hills to plains

    Thumbnail
    Date
    2009-05
    Author
    Jackson, Wesely Calvin
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Cormac McCarthy’s novels focus on two specific regions in the United States. Along with his tenth novel, The Road, McCarthy’s first four novels are set in Appalachian Tennessee while the next five take place around the U.S-Mexico border. The novels of these geographical settings chronicle over 100 years of human relationship to the landscape by emphasizing both individual and collective response to the environment. I will examine how McCarthy’s application of landscape differs between each work. An analysis of each novel as it relates to the other novels of its region will reveal common themes and variations on those themes. In comparison, a study of noted authors of American landscape, such as William Bartram and Willa Cather, will examine McCarthy’s work in the context of America’s literary understanding of its environment. Further, I will gauge McCarthy’s influence of narrating the landscape by comparing his Appalachian narratives to more recent works about the region, such as Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. The Appalachian novels provide protagonists who encounter their environment on personal levels, and these relationships emphasize different psychological and theological dynamics of their contact with landscape. The landscape in the Southwestern novels, alternatively, emphasizes America’s collective response to environment by echoing the lost cultures forced out by expansionism. While many can see in McCarthy’s novels a strong conservationist theme, his work delves past ideas of preservation and reveals more fundamental elements of America’s collective understanding of the physical world. Ultimately, McCarthy’s novels show how we relate with landscape on psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical levels.
    URI
    http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/uga_etd/jackson_wesely_c_200905_ab
    http://hdl.handle.net/10724/25494
    Collections
    • University of Georgia Theses and Dissertations

    About Athenaeum | Contact Us | Send Feedback
     

     

    Browse

    All of AthenaeumCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About Athenaeum | Contact Us | Send Feedback