Sympathy for the Devil. The Characteristics of McCarthy´s Judge Holden

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature Works grade: 1.7 University of Cologne language: English abstract: The bad the eloquent the powerful and the immortal figures have always been fascinating to read to watch or to listen to. Characters like Grendel Milton´s Satan and Bram Stoker´s Count Dracula are not only deathless as the characters themselves but they also still serve as foundations for today´s representations. Stephanie Meyer´s Twilight Sage or Rowling´s Lord Voldemort pulled millions into cinemas and book shops despite the fact that their characters lack a certain amount of profoundness. On the other hand McCarthy´s representation namely Judge Holden is far beyond the vocabulary of the common known Princes of Darkness. The degree of possible interpretations of Judge Holden is immense as well as his wickedness. Harold Bloom goes to such lengths to nominate him to be the most frightening figure in all of American literature (Bloom 2000: 255). However being only frightening does not qualify Judge Holden to be a representation of evil. If McCarthy intended to create a devil-like figure and why will be discussed on the following pages of this paper. To do that it is first of all necessary to take a deeper look on McCarthy´s foundations of Judge Holden.