Cormac McCarthy’nin Blood Meridian Adlı Eserinde Grotesk Öğeler ve Güney Gotik

Year 2019, Issue: 41, 89 - 102, 19.06.2019

Hüseyin Altındiş

https://doi.org/10.21497/sefad.586589

Abstract

Bu makale Amerikalı yazar Cormac
McCarthy’nin Blood Meridian, or The
Evening Redness in the West adlı romaninda post-southern okuma yaklaşımıyla
the Judge karakteriyle somutlaştırılan Amerikanin Güney eyaletlerinde etkisini
sürdüren tarihi travmatik olayların sorunsallaştırılmasını ve
eleştirilmesini  amaçlamaktadır.
Okuyucuya ahlaki bir pusula sunabilmek için, metin iyi-kötü dikotomisini ve
insan oğlunun tuhaf ve grotesk dünyasını ‘the kid’ ve ‘the judge’ karakterleri
aracılığıyla sunmaktadır. Bu dikotomi aracılığıyla, okuyucu baskın güç ve
söylemlerin bakış açısından ve kontrolünden kaçan olası alternatifanlatımların
ve hikayelerin varlığını kabul etmektedir. Karşıt anlatımlar her tür boyun
eğdirmeyi ve efsaneleştirilmiş tarihi sorunsallaştırmakta ve baskın gücün
ezilmişler üzerinde sürdürmeye çalıştığı şiddeti reddetmektedir. Bu bağlamda
iyi ile kötü arasındaki mücadele ve kötünün sergilemiş olduğu çılgınlık
seviyesi Bakhtin ve Thomson’un ileri sürdüğü grotesk ögeler, abartı, mübağala
ve aşırılık, ışığında iredelenmesi 
amaçlanmaktadır.

Keywords

Gotik, grotesk, şiddet, geçmiş, anı

Grotesque and Southern Gothic in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

Abstract

This article offers a
post-southernist reading that challenges and problematizes the impacts of
haunted past of the American South with implications of violence embodied by
Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood
Meridian, or The Evening Redness in
the West. In order to present a moral compass to the reader, the text
presents good-evil dichotomy and the world of human through the uncanny and
grotesque characters of “the kid” and “the judge.” Through this dichotomy, the
reader acknowledges the possibility of alternative narratives that escape from
the control and totalizing gaze of dominant power and discourses. The counter-
narratives complicate any types of subjugation, mythologized history, and
refuse to approve the violence that the prevailing power practices against
innocent people. This paper aims to analyze the struggle between the good and
evil and the degree of insanity performed by the evil depicted through southern
gothic and grotesque scenes. Thus, the paper contributes to grotesque reading
of the selected text through a number of elements: “exaggeration, hyperbolism,
and excessiveness,” generally considered fundamental attributes of the
grotesque style (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 303).

Keywords

Gothic, grotesque, violence, past, memory

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