Suttree

In Suttree, McCarthy names few of his characters. Certain characters are only named for what they look like or what they do. For example, there’s the old ragpicker who isn’t given a name. The old railway man is also unnamed. Even Michael, who has a name, is referred to as “the Indian” because of his Indigenous ancestry. There are also minor characters who are unnamed, such as the young woman Suttree brings home to his houseboat. The namelessness of these characters is an important part of McCarthy’s development of tone. Certain unnamed characters, such as the many old men, are unnamed to highlight their loneliness and their lives off the grid of society. They have lost an official identity because they are unconnected to the familial systems and trappings of civilization. They don’t demand an identity, and nor does their namelessness define them. Other nameless characters, such as the young lady Suttree brings home, aren’t named because they’re namelessness highlights their insignificance to Suttree. A community of people who lack real names emphasizes a universal condition of loneliness and isolation, illustrating The Absurdity of Modern Existence.

In these chapters, McCarthy explores the value of friendship. Suttree doesn’t have much in his life, but he at least has Compassion for others and friendships that he nurtures. His friendship with J-Bone has lasted since childhood, and Suttree recognizes his own sadness mirrored in J-Bone. J-Bone is a reminder of Suttree’s past, but J-Bone is the rare reminder of the past that Suttree doesn’t mind keeping in his life. This emphasizes that friendship lasting friendship can buoy a person in the face of the natural hardships of life. Suttree also goes out of his way to check in on his friends when the weather becomes brutally cold. He is constantly checking up on young Harrogate, whom he worries about. He gives Harrogate advice and Harrogate sees him as a mentor. Suttree also checks in on the old ragpicker, whose poverty and old age make him both pitiable and admirable in his wisdom and longevity. Suttree’s life is defined by being radically independent and self-sufficient, but his compassion toward others reveals that he’s dissatisfied being alone, and that no matter how much he’s hurting, he still believes in the community spirit emphasizing Compassion in the Face of Indignity.

Suttree is so committed to his friends that he even goes along with plans that he doesn’t want to be a part of. Suttree is smart enough to stay away from the kind of trouble Harrogate attracts, but he nonetheless ends up in difficult situations thanks to his friends. For example, when Leonard needs money from his father’s death, a death Leonard has kept a secret for months, Leonard turns to Suttree for help. Suttree eventually gives in to Leonard’s need for a friend and helps Leonard dump his father’s corpse into the river. This disgusts Suttree, but he comes to Leonard’s aid when Leonard needs him, and he overcomes his disgust of the situation to help a friend in need. Suttree is truly generous in his friendships, again, illustrating Compassion in the Face of Indignity.

This section also highlights Suttree and Harrogate as foils, in that this section of the novel reminds the reader how young Harrogate is when in Chapter 16 he is referred to as a “yegg.” Harrogate takes the bit of fatherly advice Suttree gives him about bats and interprets it in the earnest but exaggerated way a son might implement his father’s commands, ultimately yielding no gains. Similarly, Harrogate uses a presumably stolen car hood as a youthful attempt to pantomime Suttree’s rowboat. Thus, while Suttree has the background and experience to make the social threads otherwise lacking in his setting, Harrogate lacks them and is more likely to fail. Harrogate may feel pushed to more and more desperate means of survival because he fails at the simple methods at which Suttree excels. The reader is left worrying about Harrogate’s welfare and his plans for the tunnels.

The role of religion is also important in this novel. Like the Southern American authors who came before him, McCarthy infuses religion throughout the novel. The American South is home to a strong ethos of Christianity, especially in smaller towns and rural areas. Tennessee is at the northern edge of what was pejoratively coined the “Bible Belt” by a Chicago Daily Tribune journalist in 1924. Even as late as 2015, according to the Pew Research Center’s study on religion and public life, Tennessee boasted the highest proportion of evangelical protestants in the United States (“Adults in Tennessee.” Pew Research Center, 2015). Thus, even if a character is not religious themselves, they are influenced by the impact of religion on their surroundings. McCarthy shows the significance of religion on Southern life in two ways. The first is the common discourse about salvation and life after death. Many poor men who pass through Knoxville are also preachers. Traveling preachers are a trope of Southern Gothic literature, and their nomadic lifestyle and religious fervor mirror that of the characters in Suttree. What’s more, there is evidence of a correlation between poverty and religion (Crabtree, Steve. “Religiosity Highest in World's Poorest Nations.” Gallup, 31 Aug. 2010). It stands to reason that for a religious person, life on Earth may be hellish, but they can at least hold on to the hope of a better life after death. The old ragpicker contemplates death often. Though he believes in God, he isn’t convinced that God cares about him. Still, he holds on to hope that there is freedom in death. Additionally, many characters, like Suttree himself, struggle with the mistakes they’ve made and the crimes they’ve committed. Some turn to religion for salvation, while others steer away from religion because they have been so hardened by their tough reality. Dialogues about the possibility of God and salvation give McCarthy a structural way of exploring the philosophical question of religion. Does God exist, and if He does, does He care about all humanity or just some? And if even God doesn’t care about people like the old ragpicker, who would? All of these explorations show how Suttree examines the modern-day Crisis of Faith.

Another way McCarthy explores religion is through Suttree’s relationship with the Catholic church. Suttree refutes God, and his memories of growing up Catholic are marked by guilt and anxiety. The iconography of Catholicism depicts a great deal of suffering, teaching Suttree that there is, or ought to be, a direct relationship between physical pain and sinful deeds. In this context, Suttree’s lifestyle could be seen as self-punishment, a way of putting himself through suffering to atone for his sins. When Suttree drinks too much alcohol and feels depressed, he often finds himself in the yard of a church. Subconsciously, he is called back to the symbolism of what a church represents, such as community, forgiveness, and atonement.