Comparing The Violent Bear It Away And Outer Dark

American literature is known for its unique and distinct qualities. American literature has many different peculiar characteristics, but the themes and styles that the authors use make it stand out. For example, the book “Outer Dark” by Cormac McCarthy is an American gothic novel about two siblings, Culla and Rinthy, who have a baby together. Culla does not want this baby, so he leaves it in the woods and tells his sister it died. When Rinthy finds out that the baby is not dead, she leaves alone to find the child, and Culla sets out to seek his sister. Both siblings experience unsettling encounters with strangers on their paths. Much like this book, “The Violent Bear It Away,” is an American gothic novel written by Flannery O’Connor about a

In “Outer Dark,” the idea is that what shoes a character wears determines that person's fate. In the story, Culla steals someone’s shoes, and Rinthy does not have any shoes. This means that Rinthy controls her fate and is free to do what she pleases. Culla has shoes, but they are not new and worn out. Culla then steals an old man's shoes, and the old man gets hit with a brush-hook that “took him in the middle of the back, severing his spine, and he fell without a cry” (McCarthy 51). Since Culla stole the man’s fate, he had to die because he no longer had fate. Similarly, in “The Violent Bear It Away,” Tarwater knows that his fate is to be a prophet. Tarwater's great-uncle has always told him, “If by the time I die, I have not got him baptized, it'll be up to you” (O’Connor 9). Tarwater hears voices from God that the author calls “the stranger.” No matter how much proof Tarwater has that his fate is to be a prophet, he still goes against it. At the end of both books, Culla and Tarwater are forced to meet fate. At the end of “Outer Dark,” Culla is faced with his fate, which is his baby. The three bad men have taken the baby and killed it. Culla is forced to see that because he abandoned his child, Rinthy also lost her life. Rinthy sees that the baby is nothing but bones and ash, and he lays down and dies. Culla is forced to see that, by running from fate, he loses everything he ever had. In “The Violent Bear It Away,” Tarwater fights his fate so hard that the voice in his head tells him to drown the kid. He does this while reading Bible verses. Much like each other, the theme of fate is present within the