Judge Holden of Blood Meridian :: Blood Meridian Essays

examine Holden of Blood Meridian Although Cormac McCarthys sassy Blood Meridian tells the chronicle of the shaver and his journey through the harshest of environments, much of the action in the novel centers around Judge Holden. Judge Holden is a mystery from his very root fashion in the novel and remains so until the very culmination of the novel, when he is one of the few characters surviving. The kid first comes reckon to face with Holden in a saloon after a tumult and ultimately joins with Holden and a gang of misfit scalp-hunters to roam the Mexican-American borderlands. Judge Holden has some historical prat as a character. The Judge is mentioned in Samuel Chamberlains My Confession, a personal narrative published in 1956. Chamberlain was a private during the war with Mexico and met Holden when he conjugate Glantons gang of renegade scalp-hunters. Chamberlain describes Holden as gigantic and without hair, just as Holden is describe by McCarthy (Sepich 125). One of the most mysterious qualities of Judge Holden is his ability to live on from place to place and almost be in two places at once. As Tobin says, "every man in the company claims to have encountered that sootysouled gremlin in some other place" (McCarthy 124). Holdens first appearance in the novel is a prime example of his ability to appear in two places simultaneously. The Judge manages to escape from the riot in Reverend Greens dwell to a saloon where he is completely dry, even though it is burbly rain outside (7-8). The Judge also mysteriously appears next to the kid at the bar where the dancing bear has just been killed. He looks " elfin changed or none in all these years" (325). In both of these situations Judge Holden is the cause of the booby hatch around him. The Judge single-handedly incites the riot on Reverend Green and is the cause of the bear being slaughtered. These events ar indicative of the entire novel in that there is constant chaos and v iolence wherever Judge Holden go es. Judge Holdens physical appearance seems unbelievable and full of contrast. Holden towers over everyone, yet he seems pre-pubescent because of his total drop of hair and his small hands and feet. Much of the imagery surrounding Judge Holden describes him in child-like terms. The features of the kid and the Judge tend to complement each other.