Previous
Fallacy
Foil
Explanation and Analysis—The Judge and the Kid:
Over the course of the whole novel, but especially toward the end of the novel, the Judge serves as a foil for the kid. To the extent that there is a protagonist in Blood Meridian, the kid is that protagonist, and the novel is a coming-of age-story that begins with a reflection on his birth and ends with his death. The Judge, meanwhile, is evil incarnate, a version of the devil himself who lies and kills his way through the story. The tête-à-tête between the Judge and the kid –– including in the desert with Tobin, in jail after the Judge has framed the kid for Glanton's crimes, and in the bar to end the novel –– informs the reader about the kid and what he represents in the story.
The Judge both indicts the kid as a killer while simultaneously claiming he did not fully commit himself to war. The kid's refusal to shoot the Judge in the desert lends credence to the notion of the kid as, in some small way, merciful. The fact that the kid "disappointed" the Judge places the kid outside of the Judge's world of lies, violence, and dancing. When the kid notes that even dumb animals can dance, he is suggesting that despite recognizing the primordial, natural urge for violence which motivates the Judge, he also believes that urge to be beneath him, no matter how much the kid has indulged that side of himself in the past. Ultimately, by refraining from shooting the Judge, the kid marks himself as morally superior and wholly different from him, rejecting the Judge's worldview. The cost of that moral and intellectual victory is, unfortunately, the kid's life.
Related Themes:
