The Bedazzled Eye: Cormac McCarthy, José Ortega y Gasset, and Optical Democracy

Abstract

abstract:In a letter to Robert Coles, McCarthy paraphrases Ortega y Gasset’s “Notes on the Novel,” which appears together with “On Point of View in the Arts” in The Dehumanization of Art. The latter essay proves to be McCarthy’s primary source for the concept of optical democracy in Blood Meridian. McCarthy’s reflection of Ortega’s optical democracy challenges the idea that McCarthy sees no moral order in the world. His passage does not endorse the equivalency of all living and inanimate things but warns that the dazzling desert landscape of Blood Meridian is the terrain of moral confusion.