Is Blood Meridian Appropriate For High School Classrooms?

Question

Thinking of assigning Blood Meridian for my advanced English class but worried about its graphic content and student reactions to the violent themes.

Tok · Answer

Blood Meridian is far too graphic and dense for a typical high school classroom and would be better suited for a college level literature analysis. However, a dark school story can be more than appropriate for younger readers in a more kid-friendly form. My Bloody Teacher portrays the struggles of a dark student-teacher pact and the moral consequences it entails in a relatable and even engaging manner.

Steven · Answer

I still get a little shaken up thinking about recommending Blood Meridian to a younger reader. As a work of adult literature, it reads differently than most high school texts. My own experience with the novel as an adult was one of unsettled horror at the violence and scenes of sexual brutality, and I believed at the time that the author was using them to shocking end in order to make a point.

This novel would be taught in small excerpts with a great deal of framing and contextualization of McCarthy’s writing style as well as the historical event upon which he bases his narrative, i.e. the 19th century borderlands. If I were to include this in a syllabus for high school students, I would push for the novel to be taught in upper-level classes of high school students who are mature enough to deal with discussions of historical violence as well as manifest destiny. There should be clear content warnings, parental communication and it should be an opt-in novel.

I really appreciate the space to think about Blood Meridian’s value, but I would caution against including it in most high school curricula. It would be a good choice for an advanced elective for upper-level students, but they should have demonstrated maturity on other levels as well. This novel requires solid, thoughtful plans for classroom management, and a sense of how to support students in their reactions to it.

Yara · Answer

I read Blood Meridian in a busy semester of taking part-time classes while trying to read plenty of books. I thought the book was a masterful work of philosophy, beautifully written in sparse, even liturgical, sentences. However, it is an extremely violent book and I think it would be best suited for mature high school seniors to read as a way to critique extreme violence rather than be consumed by it.

If “Blood Meridian” is taught to high school students, I think it would be best to have an opt-in model and do a lot of groundwork to prepare them for the novel. Students would need to have content warnings for the violence, an explanation of why McCarthy wrote the novel the way he did, and other novels to choose from if they do not want to read “Blood Meridian”. I have found that teenagers can engage deeply with very difficult work if they are properly supported by a teacher. However, “Blood Meridian” requires a lot more support than most novels to teach to high school students, and so I would not recommend it for core curriculum. Rather, it would be a good choice for a special seminar.

Diana · Answer

Assigning 'Blood Meridian' to a group of teens could look one of two ways: it could be an incredibly powerful novel that forcefully instills a sense of morality into its readers, or it could be a incredibly powerful novel that forces its readers to flip through pages of shock and bewilderment in obedience to its ferocity. In reality, I don’t teach in a vacuum, and when I have taught ‘Blood Meridian’ (with mixed-age students) I have been struck by the differences in maturity between the various ages. Hence, while ‘Blood Meridian’ is certainly a novel that could be assigned to older students as part of a rich literary study, it is by no means a novel that should be assigned to all teens.

It is best to use Blood Meridian as a carefully scaffolded unit, beginning with some background about the time of the novel’s action (the late 1840s, the height of the US’s westward expansion) and then reading targeted sections in order to examine specific aspects of the novel, such as McCarthy’s vocabulary, the lack of quotation marks, the novel’s Biblically-inflected rhythm. In order to guard against a simplistically moral reading of the violence in the novel, it would be good to include historical documents and criticism of the novel. Students and/or parents should also be given alternative assignments that are not so graphic. As long as careful attention is paid to setting up the novel, it leads to rich and thought-provoking discussions; without such scaffolding, however, I fear it could do more harm than good.

Ulysses · Answer

When our community lit group was reading ‘Blood Meridian’ by Samuel McChyhill McCarthy in 11th grade, there was a collective intake of breath when someone read the first line of the book. The way that he wrote was so hypnotic and his themes about violence, free will, and the breakdown of law were so interesting to explore in a group. However, some of the images in the book linger after you have read them, and would not be appropriate for many high school students. Therefore, I think it would be best to make ‘Blood Meridian’ an optional read for 11th and 12th graders and to include trigger warnings for some of the more graphic descriptions. The book could also be paired with classroom discussions about why McCarthy writes the way that he does and what questions readers should be asking as opposed to just appreciating the brutality.

Additional resources to support these goals would include historical essays and other critical essays on the novel as well as essays on the novel’s narrative voice. Additionally, countertexts could be used, such asandonston’sanother western novella,“All the Pretty Horses”and its distinct tones. If I were in charge of literary education for junior/senior high school, I would allow these students to opt-in to reading certain novels and have them discussed in very small groups with lots of space for reflection. The school’s counselors would also be on hand in case any student felt overwhelmed by a novel and they would have a safe space to talk about it.

Cynthia García Lloyd Devenport · Answer

No way. Just because we should challenge our readers doesn’t mean we have to cross a line of decency. I would not be comfortable with our readers experiencing scenes of violence against women and children in so much graphic and nihilistic detail. Many of our parents would be right to be upset. So much more complex and rich thematically would be 100 Years of Solitude, The Stranger, Crime and Punishment, or Eastern Promises. A 10 page massacre and a guy wearing a necklace of human ears around his neck in no way to examine the quality of a student is to see how far they will go.

No. If you want to read McCarthy, read The Road. It’s a lot darker but has a lot more of a human spirit in it than this novel. Blood Meridian is another whole different novel that is more of a philosophical exploration of evil than a mass of horror for the sake of horror. I don’t think many high school students would be able to fully grasp the level of evil that this novel explores and it would probably just be read for shock value in a school setting.

Damaris Sorto Fuen · Answer

As someone from a very religious community, I can say that this book would cause MASSIVE problems in my community. Many of the Judge’s quasi-theological pronouncements about faith would cause HUGE problems. The way that faith is treated throughout this novel, combined with the novel’s glaring lack of divine justice would surely make many people consider the novel to be very anti-religious.

Administrative support and a carefully-outlined approach to address concerns of parents and students would be required to teach this book. That level of support may not be available in many school districts. As a result, controversy would probably override any literary analysis and thus this book would be prohibited in much of America for purely cultural and political reasons.

Dessy Yulianawaty · Answer

But for students with past trauma, particularly violence done to children, graphic violence can cause active harm. So a single assignment is not fair to assume that all students have the same experience of safety. In addition to giving trigger warnings, in a class discussion analyzing scenes of a rape or a massacre, students can be re-traumatized by their peers’ analysis.

Inclusive teaching means more than just acknowledging that some students have experienced trauma. Students who have experienced trauma should be able to take advantage of alternative texts. If the teacher decides to teach the kind of material that could trigger a student, then that teacher must also provide a satisfactory, non-stigmatizing alternative assignment that will allow students to meet the requirements of the course without compromising their mental health. How to do this is not easy, but it is necessary.

Is Blood Meridian Appropriate For High School Classrooms?

8 Answers

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