The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

1. The Crossingby Cormac McCarthy “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” –Will Rogers

2. Theme Statement Because he was immersed in nature and in tune with life and death, the main character was able to come to the conclusion that there is an afterlife for all creatures and not just man.

3. Literary Techniques • Use of nature imagery • Polysyndeton • Allusions to Native American religion/culture • Repetition • Juxtaposition • Religious imagery

4. Use of imagery shows how in tune the main character is with nature • Lines 2-3: “the dawn was not far to come.” • “grassy swale” • Lines 10-14: “Coyotes were yapping along the hills to the south…their cries seemed to have no origin other than the night itself.” • Line 28-29: “trailing wet reins through the leaves”

5. The use of polysyndeton conveys his meticulous actions toward his environment • Lines 15-20: “He got the fire going and lifted the wolf from the sheet and took the sheet to the creek and crouched in the dark and washed the blood out of it and brought it back and he cut forked sticks from a mountain hackberry and drove them into the ground with a rock and hung the sheet on a trestlepole…”

6. Comparing himself with Native Americans brings him more in touch with nature • Line 21-23: “the firelight like a burning scrim standing in a wilderness where celebrants of some sacred passion had been carried off by a rival sect”

7. The use of polysyndeton slows the speed of the sentence down to convey the main character’s reverence for the wolf and the other animals. • Lines 40-47: “The eye turned to the fire gave back no light and he closed it with his thumb and sat by her and but his hand upon her bloodied forehead and closed his own eyes…” • Lines 47-48: “Deer and hare and dove and groundvole all richly empaneled on the air for her delight.”

8. The allusions to Christian religions bring to mind the ideas of heaven and of afterlife. • Line 32: “He fell asleep with his hands palm up before him like some dozing penitent.” • Lines 49-51: “All nations of the possible world ordained by God of which she was one among and not separate from.” • Lines 57-59: “What blood and bone are made of but can themselves not make on any altar nor by any wound of war.”

9. The repetition emphasizes the main character’s understanding of a higher power. • Lines 61-62: “But which cannot be held never be held…”

10. How we can relate • Being in nature was the start to the main character’s epiphany • Camping is for us what taking care of the wolf was for him, it closes the gap between us and nature.