The Judge, the Future Type of Mind, and Negative Entropy in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article presents an intertextual reading of a key passage relating to the judge’s origin in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian in reference to H. G. Wells’s famous speech “The Discovery of the Future” (1902). It then connects the novel’s characterization and thematic issues with Wells’s insights. The judge, in particular, resonates with Wells’s portrayal of the “future type of mind” that guides present behaviors in relation to the future; other characters, in contrast, remain haunted by the past and are thus distinguished from the judge. Diverging from Wells’s Utopian outlook, Judge Holden mythologizes his scientific knowledge for the destruction of existing orders and creation of his own order, and demonstrates McCarthy’s concern with ethical concomitants of the “future type of mind.” The article concludes by explaining the judge’s ahistorical transcendence on the basis of the scientific concept “negative entropy,” upon which he maintains his order and immortality, bought at the price of leaving chaos behind.