“The pandemonium of the sun” and “a fishcolored moon”: images of celestial bodies in Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”

Abstract

The research aims to identify the role of the western sky in the artistic and philosophical-religious worldview presented in the novel “Blood Meridian” by the contemporary American novelist Cormac McCarthy. The paper examines images of celestial bodies – the sun, moon, stars, and meteoric phenomena – within a broad cultural-historical and philosophical context. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between images of celestial bodies and the key categories of the novel’s poetics: violence, illusion, transcendence, and the ontological disorientation of a person in the frontier landscape. The scientific originality of the research lies in the fact that, for the first time, a system of functional features of celestial symbolism in “Blood Meridian” has been identified, encompassing the levels of metaphorics, symbolism, mythopoetics, and narrative composition. The analysis is based on intertextual connections with biblical, Gnostic, and classical traditions, as well as using a comparative approach that includes reference to visual practices of American Romanticism. As a result of the analysis, it has been found that celestial bodies in the novel become autonomous symbols of a transcendent order, alien to people. They form a cosmic dimension of the narrative, in which traditional coordinates of morality, meaning, and salvation are lost, and a person is presented as a figure subordinate to an indifferent or even hostile universe.

Research materials

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2. Collins Online Dictionary. https://www.collinsdictionary.com

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Author information

About this article

Publication history

• Received: August 6, 2025.
• Published: September 2, 2025.

Keywords

• Кормак Маккарти
• роман «Кровавый меридиан»
• ревизионистский вестерн
• фронтирный пейзаж
• образы небесных светил
• Cormac McCarthy
• novel “Blood Meridian”
• revisionist Western
• frontier landscape
• images of celestial bodies

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