Blood Meridian. Plot Summary. All Symbols The Dance Bathing. Literary Devices. Download PDF. Download Teacher Edition. AI Tools. Introduction Intro. Plot Summary Plot. Themes All Themes.
Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel Theme Viz. Download this Chart PDF. Back to Guide. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Blood Meridian , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. The gang rides north through furious storms, rain, hail, and more rain for days on end. Glanton knocks at the door of an inn and the men are permitted to enter.
By noon the next day, followed by a sad fiddler, the Americans have found a bodega run by a man named Frank Carroll and are drinking. Without a motive or warrant to commit acts of violence, the scalp hunters become wayward, devoid of purpose.
As such, they take to drinking heavily. In the bar, the Judge strikes up a dance and, as at the feast Trias held, the dance is a prelude for debauchery. Active Themes. Warfare and Domination. By that night, the Americans are once again hideously debauched. A priest comes out bearing an icon of Christ but the Americans beat him to the ground and fling gold coins at him as he lies in the street. The priest does not touch the money until some boys come by and begin to pick it up, upon which he orders them to bring the money to him.
The Americans cheer and drink a toast to the priest. The priest, in having boys collect and bring him what is essentially blood money, demonstrates a worldliness and avaricious pragmatism that undercut his moral authority. This corrupt priest and his kind are partially responsible for the decay of Christianity witnessed by the novel. The next day is the Feast of the Holy Souls, a Christian celebration.
