In the novel Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy, he illustrates how bloody and horrible the westward expansion was. Deconstruction is defined as “a critique of the hierarchical oppositions that have structured Western thought: interior/exterior, mind/body, literal/metaphorical, speech/writing, presence/absence, nature/culture, form/meaning” (Culler 126). . The author uses deconstruction so the reader can see how dark the westward movement was. As mentioned before, the deconstruction of a culture can take place in anyone's mind, and while reading this book, the reader's thoughts on American westward expansion change due to the dark elements the author uses in his book. McCarthy does this in several ways, such as using vivid detail about the many battles and combats that take place during the Kid's journey west, maintaining historical accuracy throughout and the constant struggle between good and evil. At the beginning of the novel, McCarthy introduces us to the Kid, pale and thin, and his parents. “His parents are known to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, but in reality his father was a schoolmaster,” which is a fancy word for a teacher (McCarthy 3). His “mother, dead for fourteen years, incubated in her womb the creature that would take him away” (McCarthy 3). The Kid can neither read nor write and he already has a taste for violence. At fourteen, he decided to run away and headed west to Memphis without knowing what to expect and without any real survival skills. As previously stated, the Kid already had a taste for violence, and he is depicted twice at the beginning. of the novel. The first instance is when he runs into a drunk man outside a bar because the Kid didn't want to come out middle of paper...... extension, or the Judge, rolled through and conquered. Exploring the West was no walk in the park. Bloody and horrible fighting took place. In Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, he demonstrates how bloody and horrific the westward expansion was. The author uses the literary theory of deconstruction to show the reader how dark this era was. McCarthy demonstrates this by using vivid detail during fights and battles, while remaining historically accurate, with the constant presence between good and evil throughout the novel. Works Cited Culler, Jonathan D. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. PrintJohn Emil Sepich The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 24, no. 1 (fall 1991), pp. 16-31 McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian: Evening Redness in the West. Np: np, nd Print