Analysis Of Frank Mccarthys The Kid - 2471 Words

McCarthy describes the Kid as a savage animal rather than a sympathetic protagonist. Yet instead of representing an ideal hero, the Kid is shown to savage, uncaring, and inhuman. The first description of the Kid as a child and of the night of his birth. He is described as â€Å"incubat[ing] in [his mother’s] bosom†¦who would carry [his mother] off† and that he already has â€Å"a taste for mindless violence† (1). To â€Å"incubate† refers to dormancy, usually applied to viruses developing inside a host. In calling the kid a creature that â€Å"incubates† in the womb portrays him as a virus, an unfeeling entity existing to cause disease regardless of the person. Emphasizing this concept of detachment is the phrase â€Å"carry her off†. The Kid is described to have†¦show more content†¦Sproule’s arm is badly injured and he moves much more slowly across the plains. When they arrive at a deserted town, the Kid says that †Å"we ought to scout the houses† and that â€Å"we need to find†¦a place to sleep† (62). Note that the Kid uses the pronoun â€Å"we† and not ‘I’ or ‘you’. Despite Sproule being injured enough to cause him to be a liability, the Kid still considers them as a group. He acts for the benefit of both of them, as shown in how he discusses their action in terms ‘we’. Even after Sproule tells him to â€Å"go on† and for the kid to â€Å"save [himself]† he stays by Sproule and doesn’t move, choosing to travel with Sproule and share the scarce food supply until the man dies of his injuries (66). The Kid could have easily abandoned Sproule in favor of surviving alone. With the limited supplies they scavenged, the Kid may have fared better alone than sharing with Sproule who had little chance of recovering with no professional medical help nearby. Acting for the sake of a group and watching out for someone el se isn’t an action following the image of the selfish, cruel individual. The novel even appears to echo this misrepresentation of the Kid during the scene where Sproule decries the kid as someone â€Å"wrong all the way through† when he thinks Kid tried to kill him (69). The reality of that situation was that a bat had come and bit Sproule to suck his blood. The Kid had woken up and tried to kill the bat, not Sproule. The Kid appears more well-intentioned than he is