Deconstructive Destruction. Violence and Representation in Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje

Abstract

Violence is not outside the limits of representation; it remains intertwined in its very textual fabric. This thesis investigates the inherent violence of representation in Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Hand Poems by Michael Ondaatje. The thesis’ main objective is to compare the thematic violence in the text to the rhetorical violence of the text in order to illuminate how both novels use the backdrop of US westward expansion to underscore the broader issue of the innate violence of representation altogether. Each novel critically engages with the myth of the American Frontier, a myth built into the fabric of American self-identity, revealing this identity to be inherently rooted in misrepresentation. Challenging conventional beliefs, Blood Meridian and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid assert that violence is not external to representation but it is fundamentally woven into its very structure. Through a Derridean lens of deconstruction this thesis aims to help the reader gain further insight in how both novels encode and enact the inherent violence of representation, language and the meaning-making process.