"Things happen to you they happen": Cormac McCarthy, morality, and neo-naturalism

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dc.contributor.authorGibbs, Alan
dc.date.accessioned2021-12-06T13:32:54Z
dc.date.available2021-12-06T13:32:54Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.date.updated2021-12-01T16:33:22Z
dc.description.abstractThis article examines elements of determinism and naturalism in Cormac McCarthy's twenty-first-century novels, No Country for Old Men and The Road. While naturalism has been noted in McCarthy's work prior to these novels, this article contends that the character and strength of naturalism has changed in the most recent works. This change is placed in the general context of naturalist theory, as well as what the article argues is a more general resurgence of naturalism in American culture post-9/11. In particular, this article examines the implications in McCarthy's work for the extent to which the deterministic dimension of naturalism prevents us from judging characters morally, since they exercise at best highly limited free will. The article provides a detailed analysis of this phenomenon in the two novels, and also uses this to place them in the wider American and global twenty-first-century context.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationGibbs, A. (2020) '"Things happen to you they happen”: Cormac McCarthy, Morality, and Neo-Naturalism', The Cormac McCarthy Journal, 18, pp. 56-77. doi: 10.5325/cormmccaj.18.1.0056en
dc.identifier.doi10.5325/Cormmccaj.18.1.0056en
dc.identifier.endpage77en
dc.identifier.issn2333-3073
dc.identifier.journaltitleThe Cormac McCarthy Journalen
dc.identifier.startpage56en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/12317
dc.identifier.volume18en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherPennsylvania State University Pressen
dc.relation.urihttps://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/cormmccaj.18.1.0056
dc.rights© 2020 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.en
dc.subjectDeterminismen
dc.subjectNaturalismen
dc.subjectAmerican literatureen
dc.subjectCormac McCarthyen
dc.subjectNeo-naturalismen
dc.title"Things happen to you they happen": Cormac McCarthy, morality, and neo-naturalismen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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