A Style of Horror: Is Evil Real in Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark?

摘要

This article challenges a critical tradition that recuperates the horror of Cormac McCarthy's 1968 Outer Dark using the novel's literary art. In contrast, I argue that the text works as horror through its remarkable style. The novel's form and resultant dispersal of intention unsettle the use of immanent grounds to decide what things mean, which enables judgment of evil. Instead of nihilism, though, Outer Dark shows the insufficiency of epistemological frameworks through a narrative that naturalizes the material real and a metanarrative or self-reflexive questioning of what is real.View full textDownload full textKeywordshorror, evil, style, metanarrativeRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00111611003717709