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Chapter 17
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Blood Meridian, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Warfare and Domination
Witness and Mercy
Fate
Religion and Ritual
Racism and Partisanship
Summary
Analysis
In the early morning, Glanton, the Judge, and their five men ride out of the Yuma camp. They’ve conspired with the Indians to seize the ferry.
Partisanship between the gang and the Yumas is fluidly and opportunistically established.
Themes
Meanwhile, that morning, a group of women at the ferry crossing have discovered "the idiot" in his cage. One “huge woman” named Sarah Borginnis seeks out Cloyce and shames him for keeping his brother—his given name revealed for the first time here as James Robert Bell—in a filthy cage. Cloyce gives the "idiot" to the care of the women.
Throughout the novel, the female characters tend to be more humane than their male counterparts, not at all preoccupied with power or entertained by cruelty. Sarah’s liberation of the "idiot" exemplifies this. She sees the "idiot" not as a thing to be exploited but as a person, with a name.
Themes
While singing hymns, the women bathe "the idiot" and dress him in clean clothes. Sarah orders, while she wades in the water with James Robert, that his cage be burnt. As it goes up in flames, the "idiot" stares at it: everyone agrees that he understands the significance of this. Later, at night, Sarah tucks James Robert into bed.
Whereas the Judge claims that he’d have all birds put into zoos, Sarah offers a different vision of life, where cages are burnt and all human beings are treated with kindness and respect. Ironically, she acts more like a family member to James than James’s own brother does. The bathing of the "idiot" is reminiscent of a baptism, and it is no coincidence that it is in these interactions that James Robert Bell regains his name.
Themes
In the night, "the idiot" wakes, and naked he wanders to the river. He enters the water, but soon loses his footing and sinks from sight. At just this moment, the Judge is walking by, “such encounters being commoner than men suppose.” The Judge steps into the water and seizes the "idiot"—it is like “a birth scene or baptism” or some other strange ritual—and carries him safely back to the camp.
The Judge sadistically drowned puppies earlier, but rescues the "idiot" from drowning here. One explanation for this seeming inconsistency of character is that letting the "idiot" drown provides no sadistic pleasure to the Judge, though perhaps also the Judge has an idea for how he might use or master the "idiot." The "idiot" seems to long for the water that Sarah so kindly bathed him in. It may be that the "idiot" wants to die, and so the Judge’s act is no kindness at all. After all a traditional baptism is one in which a person is dunked in the water, and here the Judge does the opposite, removing the "idiot"—who in his lack of thought has a kind of natural innocence—from the water.
Themes
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