Another World Entire: the Posthumanism of Cormac Mccarthy

Cormac McCarthy's novels are thought experiments in what it might mean to write posthuman works of fiction. In a close reading of three of his novels, Child of God, The Crossing, and The Road , this project reveals how McCarthy's stories paradoxically unravel the dangerous human desire to make of our world a story. His characters, Lester Ballard, Billy Parham, and the boy, become posthuman as they live increasingly outside of narrative. Their existences extend beyond the page, in a radical intimacy with the world, evident in the haunting and elusive presences, and absences, of wolves, hawks, trout, and even the itself in these novels. McCarthy demonstrates how the reality of the world is "another world entire" from the written page and the humanist project. At the end of his novels, McCarthy would point us to an existence beyond the novel.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. in English

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Pless, Margaret Henson

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jay D. Watson
• Robert Cummings
• Ann Fisher-Wirth

• Child Of God
• Cormac Mccarthy
• Posthumanism
• The Crossing
• The Road
• American Literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/232

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1231