The Hope of God in the Outer Dark: Thoughts on Cormac McCarthy

“And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.  In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Matthew 25:30

So says our Lord in his Olivet discourse which I finished reading this morning.  As many have put it, much of our understanding of Hell has come from Jesus Christ.  Without him, we would almost have no doctrine concerning it.  Beware those who say there is only anihilation!  There is a real hell, and in it “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” for eternity.  No ceasing of existence, but eternal punishment apart from God’s presence.

This concept of “outer darkness” caught my eye this morning.  I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s second novel Outer Dark this past Sunday.  I have decided to write my undergraduate thesis on some aspect of this man’s novels.  I am charged with reading all ten before January 2009.  I have three down, Blood Meridian: Or Evening Redness in the West, The Orchard Keeper, and now, Outer Dark.

Outer Dark is one of the most disturbing books I have read.  Not the most-that would go to Blood Meridian.

But why, Vince, do you engage in such dark and hopeless texts?  Cormac McCarthy is notorious for his intense violence and heart-wrenching theses.

I approached this project after having seen the Cohen Brothers film version of No Country for Old Men.  After seeing it once, I was hooked.  I didn’t understand this man’s point very well, and I’m sure the directors added their own flair and tastes.  But McCarthy is no author you hear of very much.  He almost hides from the public eye (something I admire).  He gave his stamp of approval on this project which I found interesting.  The film is brilliant.  If you don’t think so, see it again.  It’s very close to the novel I understand.  Thus, my interest came.

After much thought, I knew I wanted to engage in the man’s mind.  I don’t know his mind, nor will I ever.  But with 10 novels filled with violence and the good ol’ South, I’m entranced to see what compels him.

Speaking from the English Major side of my mind:  This man’s prose is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever read.

Speaking from the closet-Theology Major side of my mind: This man’s worldview seems hopeless.

Note this comment from one of his characters in Outer Dark.

Hard people makes hard times.  I’ve seen the meanness of humans till I don’t know why God ain’t put out the sun and gone away (p. 192).

I don’t know with whom McCarthy identifies in his novels, but I suppose that his basic thesis for this novel is simply this: It’s better to blind than to have to view the outer darkness of this world.

There is so much imagery of a good darkness (ignorance) and bad darkness (reality).  I will not give away the plot or the events, but his protagonists basically go through hell to no avail.  It’s quite heart-breaking.  Here’s one passage from a minor character on the long journey, a Reverend:

“I won’t tell it all.  This blind feller hollered out one time and said: Looky here at me, blind and all.  I guess you reckon I ort to love Jesus.

Well, neighbor, I says, I believe ye ort. He give ye eyes to see and then he tuck em away.  And maybe you never was much of a christian to start with and he figgered this’d bring ye round.  They’s been more than one feller brought to the love of Jesus over the paths of affliction.  And what better way than blind? In a world darksome as this’n I believe it’s got a good deal to recommend it.  The grace of God don’t rest easy on a man.  It can blind him easy as not.  It can bend him and make him crooked.  And who did Jesus love, friends? The lame the halt and the blind, that’s who.  Them is the ones scarred with God’s mercy.  Stricken with his love.  Ever legless fool and old blind mess like you is a flower in the garden of God.  Amen.  I told him that.” 226

It is better to be blind, it seems to say,  Jesus loved them the most.  This discourse, I think, holds an element of his thesis.  Lastly, we note a blind man answer to a question near the end of the book:

“I ain’t never prayed.  Why don’t ye pray back your eyes?

I believe it’d be a sin.  Them old eyes can only show ye what’s done there anyways.  If a blind man needed eyes he’d have eyes.” 240-241

Interesting…these are just a few thoughts I had regarding my most recent reading.

Nevertheless, I look at this and wonder-were there no God, this thesis would be true.

Indeed, apart from God, what hope is there?  The Outer Darkness of this world, hell on earth, might just make me want blindess.  As Hemingway put it, “The world will kill you.”

Indeed, in my literary studies, I often see such hopelessness in the literature from the 1950s-today.  Post-modernism has no hope in it.  Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, for instance, is brilliant, but completely hopeless.  I’m mostly interested in this worldview because I know that it controls our culture in America today.

God’s people, however, have hope.  When we face the seemingly hopeless incidents I read about, my one remembrance should be these words:

…hope does not put to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:5

Like that character and many of McCarthy’s characters, I often feel like an old world-wearied man (sitting on the porch in my rocking chair, shotgun across my lap, hound dog to my side) and wondering why God hasn’t just put out the sun and gone away considering how evil we are. 

Thanks be to God.  He’s staying right where He is, and He’s on my side in Christ Jesus.  Whom shall I fear?

Working with you to see hope amidst the outer dark,

Vince R.

McCarthy, Cormac, Outer Dark. Vintage Books. New York. 1968