It's often interpreted as a critique of manifest destiny, the idea that settlers were destined to expand across North America. He's describing that westward expansion in abstract terms.
The man digging holes is a pioneer. McCarthy isn't really clear on what he does; intentionally so. He might be digging fence holes, making campfires, building railroad tracks – it doesn't really matter.
The wanderers are the settlers following the pioneer westward. They appear to be coordinated by some force, like the pieces of a clock. This is arguably the "go west" attitude of manifest destiny.
"...they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality" is McCarthy's true criticism of manifest destiny. Retrospectively, we glorify settlement of the west and slot it into a clean narrative or progress. But in its time, the expansion was chaotic, violent and devoid of morals. People were just walking hole-to-hole for the sake of finding the next hole.
Some wanderers collect bones and some don't. Perhaps McCarthy means that some wanderers kill, but we don't know. From McCarthy's nihilistic viewpoint it doesn't matter because the westward expansion is moral-less so killing someone isn't different from collecting bones on the ground.
This contrasts with the moral good vs. evil narrative usually applied to the old west (see anything written on cowboys vs. indians, sheriff vs. bandits, etc.) McCarthy portrays the old west outside of a moral framework. Horrific violence happens and there's no explanation or justification.
I'll just add: in my own opinion this epilogue is a bit of literary trickery. Like the past, it's difficult to parse. As the epilogue, it naturally occupies a place of significance. This must be the key to understanding Blood Meridian!
But after wracking your brain trying to decrypt the message, you realize that it just says there is no greater meaning to the violence of the book. It is just people doing things on a vast plain.
It's almost as though McCarthy is saying to us, "See? You're still looking for a deeper meaning that does not exist."
I’m about halfway through this book and I’d say this is a very apt explanation, but a bit handwavey.
McCarthy seemed to deal _absurdly well_ in the banality of the pitches of life, both high and low. One always leads to another. It’s a sort of nihilism but with a karmic baseline. Reading his prose I got the sense I shouldn't make much out of anything, but all the same, it still happened and is worth talking about.
Yes, I think the detail and lyricism of the prose intentionally causes us to look for a moral framework for the story.
Many readers feel cognitive dissonance from this book: there’s so much detail, it must add up to some moral lesson. You’ll hear people say, “Blood Meridian is an amazing book, but I don’t understand it.”
They’re still trying to apply a moral label to the story and can’t find one. To quote The Judge, “Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.”
McCarthy’s message in Blood Meridian may be that we see a higher fidelity picture of the old west if we don’t attempt to fit events into a moral arc. Still worth discussing, but we must abandon good vs. evil as a framework if we want a glimpse at the truth of what happened.
When I read it without any context I could see the dawn of human civilization (and progress) in it as well (you can think that the man is trying to make fire, for example). I guess the vagueness allows for many interpretations and the parallelism between these interpretations gives a sense of profoundness. I wonder if the ancient texts, like Torah or Daode Jing, were written with the same intent :?
The man digging holes is a pioneer. McCarthy isn't really clear on what he does; intentionally so. He might be digging fence holes, making campfires, building railroad tracks – it doesn't really matter.
The wanderers are the settlers following the pioneer westward. They appear to be coordinated by some force, like the pieces of a clock. This is arguably the "go west" attitude of manifest destiny.
"...they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality" is McCarthy's true criticism of manifest destiny. Retrospectively, we glorify settlement of the west and slot it into a clean narrative or progress. But in its time, the expansion was chaotic, violent and devoid of morals. People were just walking hole-to-hole for the sake of finding the next hole.
Some wanderers collect bones and some don't. Perhaps McCarthy means that some wanderers kill, but we don't know. From McCarthy's nihilistic viewpoint it doesn't matter because the westward expansion is moral-less so killing someone isn't different from collecting bones on the ground.
This contrasts with the moral good vs. evil narrative usually applied to the old west (see anything written on cowboys vs. indians, sheriff vs. bandits, etc.) McCarthy portrays the old west outside of a moral framework. Horrific violence happens and there's no explanation or justification.