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Allegory
Definition of Alliteration
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the “b” sound in: “Bob brought the box of bricks to... read full definition
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the “b” sound in: “Bob brought... read full definition
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the... read full definition
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—S and L Alliteration:
Chapter 11 begins with an alliteration of "s" and "l" sounds as McCarthy describes an ascent up a wooded landscape:
The shoeless mules slaloming through the dry grass and pine needles. In the blue coulees on the north slopes narrow tailings of old snow. They rode up switchbacks through a lonely aspen wood where the fallen leaves lay like golden disclets in the damp black trail.
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Massacre :
Chapter 12 includes a moment where McCarthy, describing a brutal and violent massacre of the Gileños, paints a vivid picture:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There were in the camp a number of Mexican slaves and these ran forth calling out in spanish and were brained or shot and one of the Delawares emerged from the smoke with a naked infant dangling in each hand and squatted at a ring of midden stones and swung them by the heels each in turn and bashed their heads against the stones so that the brains burst forth through the fontanel in a bloody spew and humans on fire came shrieking forth like berserkers and the riders hacked them down with their enormous knives and a young woman ran up and embraced the bloodied forefeet of Glanton’s warhorse.
Related Themes:
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Burning Bush :
After the kid refrains from killing an injured Shelby as Glanton had ordered him to do, he is separated from Tate as members of General Elias's army attempt to shoot them. With no horse, supplies, or allies, the kid stumbles across a lone tree burning in the desert, an allusion to the burning bush of the Bible:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog’s, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jedda, in Babylon.
Related Themes:
