Interpretation for Frank Herrera - Doug Vinson's Blog

Hi Frank.  "The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off."

My shortest answer is that the mother's offspring is portrayed as her enemy, or at least as one who acts contrary to her interest/acts unlike most children.  Saying "the creature" leaves the door open for being inhuman or less-than-fully-human.

Having read the book, a short reply is that the main character, 'The Kid,' is being introduced as an anti-hero, evil from the get-go, not dependable as being a normal child or person, easily capable of violence.  Was the mother ending herself by this incubation?  We can infer that "the creature" coming into the world was the end of the mother, from the age of The Kid and the stated fourteen years since her death.

'Blood Meridian' is a great book, if not my favorite then in the top handful.  A harsh book, certainly not for everybody, full of brutal characters and unforgettable images, burned into memory by McCarthy's great prose.  The Kid, while frequently violent, is not uniformly so, and shows mercy at times as well as a reluctance to kill in some situations.  The setting of 'Blood Meridian' is a violent time in the history of North America, but McCarthy presents violence almost as if it exists for its own sake, the author not commenting on it directly other than noting its place in human nature and our society.