Riding around drunk in the burning hot sun all day and constantly under the threat of guerilla warfare is enough to drive any person crazy, but the question Blood Meridian keeps asking us is: where do we draw the line between pure craziness and the violence that every sane person has inside themselves? Are Glanton and his gang truly crazy for riding around and murdering a bunch of people, or are they just self-interested and totally devoid of compassion? You need to be the judge. Well, scratch that. The judge character needs to be the judge. You need to be the reader… oh, you know what we mean.
Questions About Madness
- Do you think there's any particular character in this book who's crazy, or is everyone crazy? Why?
- In a world as brutal as that of Blood Meridian, where do you draw the line between sane and insane? Can you?
- Do you think that the judge is crazy? Why or why not?
Chew on This
In Blood Meridian, we learn that "crazy" is a relative term and that something that's crazy in one culture can be completely sane in another.
Blood Meridian shows us that there's no hope for survival for people who don't have at least a little craziness in them.