Discredited Female Characters, or “Gone With the Women”. A Descriptive Essay of Marginalized Femininity in Cormac McCarthy’s Selected Novels

Abstract

Cormac McCarthy, one of the greatest contemporary novelists in America, glorifies the male world, giving women minor importance. In one interview, after being asked about the absence of women in his works, he replied “women are tough (...). I don’t think men understand women. They find them very mysterious”. The word “mysterious” may have a negative connotation and would refer to something dangerous, scary, suspicious. After studying McCarthy’s works, it is hard not to associate the writer with an unfavourable, indeed, misogynistic tendency to mystify women and female sexuality. Not only does he characterize women as degraded characters, often relegated to insignificant duties, but presents them as symbols of trouble, misfortune, death. The novelist praises the male bond, whereas the female-male relationship perishes. This essay contextualizes his male dominance over female characters, points out the diminished role of women, as well as outlining several recurring patterns of portraying them as bad mothers, subservient characters, whores, and their association with danger and death.