Term of Award
Spring 2025
Degree Name
Master of Arts in English (M.A.)
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (open access)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of English
Committee Chair
Olivia Carr Edenfield
Committee Member 1
Bradley Edwards
Committee Member 2
Joe Pellegrino
Non-Voting Committee Member
Lydia Cooper
Abstract
Much of the discussion concerning female characters in Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre revolves around assertions of narrative misogyny and subjection resulting from overly reductive criticism based on identity singularity. Had the critics taken this approach with McCarthy’s male characters, there would be little discussion of his work today as they, too, would have appeared as shallow stereotypes. Such readings are of limited interest or usefulness. Rather, when readers pay attention to the richness of the literary craft of McCarthy’s works, it is possible to read his male characters with great complexity. The same treatment, applied to his female characters, reveals precisely the same textual and aesthetic richness. If a critic approaches McCarthy's text utilizing only the lens of literary criticism and its available theories and tropes, the themes of humanity’s effect on the natural and mystical world will most assuredly be missed. Revisiting All the Pretty Horses (1992) and Cities of Plain (1998), specifically the characters Alfonsa, Alejandra, and Magdalena demonstrate the feminine complexities work in concert with rather than opposed to the masculine complexities to create a view of humanity – a humanity that is devolving in the wake of modernism, industrialism, and elitist power.
Recommended Citation
Trepagnier, April, "The Elite and the Illicit: Women, Power, and History in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses and Cities of the Plain" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2886.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/2886
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
