Child of God
Encyclopedia
Child of God is the third novel
by American
author Cormac McCarthy
.
Though the novel received critical praise, it was not a financial success. Like its predecessor, Outer Dark
, Child of God established McCarthy's interest in using extreme isolation, perversity, and violence to represent normal human experience. McCarthy ignores literary conventions — for example, he does not use quotation marks — and chops and changes among several styles of writing such as matter-of-fact descriptions, almost poetic prose, and colloquial first-person narration (with the speaker remaining unidentified).
, Tennessee
, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.
and pedophilia
. Ballard, who the novel makes clear is unable to have conventional romantic relationships, eventually descends into necrophilia after finding a dead couple in a car. After this "first love" perishes in a fire he becomes proactive, creating dead female partners by shooting them with his rifle. Ballard also makes no distinction between women and girls, at one point killing a girl whom he had previously asked "How come you wear them britches? You cain't see nothin". Another theme examined by the novel is survival. As the real world pushes Ballard further and further into a corner, there are many examples of actions aimed at survival, from the stealing of food to a particularly devious escape after he is captured by a group of vengeful men.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
.
Though the novel received critical praise, it was not a financial success. Like its predecessor, Outer Dark
Outer Dark
Outer Dark is the second novel by U.S. writer Cormac McCarthy, published in 1968. The time and setting are nebulous, but can be assumed to be somewhere in the Southern United States, sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The novel tells of a woman who bears her brother's baby...
, Child of God established McCarthy's interest in using extreme isolation, perversity, and violence to represent normal human experience. McCarthy ignores literary conventions — for example, he does not use quotation marks — and chops and changes among several styles of writing such as matter-of-fact descriptions, almost poetic prose, and colloquial first-person narration (with the speaker remaining unidentified).
Plot summary
Set in mountainous Sevier CountySevier County, Tennessee
Sevier County is a county of the state of Tennessee, United States. Its population was 71,170 at the 2000 United States Census. It is included in the Sevierville, Tennessee, Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN Combined Statistical Area. The...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.
Themes
One of the novel's main themes is sexual deviancy, specifically necrophiliaNecrophilia
Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
and pedophilia
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
. Ballard, who the novel makes clear is unable to have conventional romantic relationships, eventually descends into necrophilia after finding a dead couple in a car. After this "first love" perishes in a fire he becomes proactive, creating dead female partners by shooting them with his rifle. Ballard also makes no distinction between women and girls, at one point killing a girl whom he had previously asked "How come you wear them britches? You cain't see nothin". Another theme examined by the novel is survival. As the real world pushes Ballard further and further into a corner, there are many examples of actions aimed at survival, from the stealing of food to a particularly devious escape after he is captured by a group of vengeful men.