1999 AP Lit. Exam Prompt: Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Crossing (techniques and impact)

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The Crossing
In the following excerpt from The Crossing (1994) Cormac McCarthy’s novel, the speaker portrays the main character’s responsibility of burying a she-wolf, and in the process, he contemplates of his inner beliefs. This understanding has an intense cause on the protagonist. The excerpt does not offer much background information, although, in the situation of indirect details, the audience is provided with a comprehensive depiction of the protagonist’s incident. McCarthy uses comprehensive, practical diction to make powerful visuals that express the deepness of the narrator’s knowledge. These metaphors, together with abstract spiritual references, and increased by the speaker’s syntax, causes the passage’s somber, venerating mood, and clarifies the profound grief and doubt felt by the main character.
The protagonist experiences several physical struggles and dangers such as sleeping in the cold night to take good care of the wolf. He faced the threat of fighting noises of coyotes. McCarthy utilizes personification by saying, “the coyotes were yapping,” (line 11) and “were calling” (line 12) to demonstrate the fierceness of these animals. Coyotes are dangerous and can easily tear through flesh and bones making the protagonist vulnerable. The narrator also thoroughly depicts the protagonist’s relations with the wolf. With “trousers stiff with blood,” (line 5) the main character “cradles” the she-wolf, her fur “bristly with the blood dried upon it” (line 7-8).

He feels the “cold and perfect teeth” in his hands. The wolf’s “eye turned to the fire gave no light,” he closes it and feels her “bloodied forehead” (line 45). In so cautiously mentioning the physical scenes of the protagonist’s incident, McCarthy’s speaker creates attractive and touching visuals that express the effect of the wolf’s death on the main character. The careful, warm explanation, of both the stunning and the instinctive, conveys the whole of the experience’s cause on the protagonist.
Together with thorough imagery, McCarthy utilizes metaphorical religious citations to generate a serious, almost spiritual mood, and convey the main character’s intense sadness and fear. Furthermore, the syntactical methods employed stress the deep feelings. While hanging a sheet to be dried out by the fire, it “[steams]… like a burning scrim standing in the wilderness where celebrants of some sacred passion had been carried off by rival sects” (line 21-22). The protagonist falls asleep afterward “palm up… like some dozing penitent” (line 31-32). When the main character reflects on the she-wolf’s dead body, he watches her “running in the mountains” (line 45) with a “rich matrix of creatures” (line 46-47) in front of her. He thinks “all nations of the possible world ordained by God” accompanying the wolf. He grasps the head of the wolf and “[reaches] out to hold what cannot be held… at once terror and of great beauty” (55-57). McCarthy uses all of these religious references, made in a metaphorical, abstract style; trigger the sad mood of the excerpt. They mirror the profound grief the protagonist experiences at the wolves running, and the terror and doubt he feels at the verve end inherent beauty of the wolf’s previous life.
In conclusion, these metaphors, together with abstract spiritual references, and increased by the speaker’s syntax, causes the passage’s somber, venerating mood, and clarifies the profound grief and doubt felt by the main character. The loneliness of his environs permits the protagonist to feel the force and attractiveness of the environment as he contemplates on the wolf’s days and death. In separation, he eventually defines her position in both the physical and religious worlds as one of incomprehensible dominion. McCarthy efficiently deals with both aspects with life-like metaphors and carefully articulated sentences. Through these techniques, the readers are shown a comprehensive account conveyed entirely through inference.
Works Cited
McCarthy Cormac . The Crossing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1994.