An Examination of Culture in "Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: Dialogue of Life and Death" by Dianne C. Luce

Note: page numbers cited are quoting The Sunset Limited.

White feels trapped in Black's apartment
much the same way these innocent prisoners
and detained behind foreboding metal gates
of the Dachau concentration camp, whose sign
gives them false hope for staying alive:
"Work makes you free."
White is confined both by Black's need
to educate him about the goodness of God
and the seven locks bolting the door shut.
Even though Black sees himself as a savior,
White sees him as a jail guard for keeping
him alive in a "world [that] is basically
a forced labor camp from which the workers
- perfectly innocent - are led forth by lottery,
a few each day, to be executed" (49).

For White, culture—literature, art, music—once inspired him and gave him something to believe in, despite his resentment for people in general. In a way, it was for him what religion was for Black; while White sees Black as a Bible thumper, Black describes white as a “culture junkie” (27). However, White lost all hope for the human race after "Western Civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys at Dachau" (27). In the 1940s, the Nazis attempted to preserve and expand a perfect German culture by educating and annihilating any minority that diverged from the pure Arian ideal. After seeing such horrific atrocities, the professor believes he "witness[ed] the death of everything" he ever knew to be good and true (26). According to Dianne C. Luce, “his knowledge of human history has led him to conclude that happiness is ‘contrary to the human condition’ (54),” and he sees no point in being alive anymore because living only leads to pain. McCarthy illustrates through White’s perspective of reality that the death of culture leads to the death of human spirit.

Watch White's closing argument below.

Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited is unique in a number of ways. Called a novel in dramatic form, it is meant to be both read and performed in order to grasp the full meaning behind the work. A distinctive characteristic is that the only two characters are unnamed, just labeled the Black and the Professor (or White in the film), and they remain in one room of Black’s apartment for the duration of the story. It is obvious that the men have drastically different views of life and the world around them. On one hand, we have the white professor, who is brilliant and highly educated with a love for culture, but has an incredibly gloomy outlook because he has been deeply depressed for years and is suicidal. Then there is the black man, who saves the white man from jumping in front of a train and preaches to the white man about God’s love while alternatively telling gruesome, bloody stories about how he bludgeoned another man while he was in prison for murder. These contrasting outlooks lead audiences to ponder whose view is right and question the very nature of reality itself.

What do you think? Is the black man right, or is the white man? Perhaps it's neither, or maybe even both are correct if reality is merely based upon a person's point of view. Watch the full film below to formulate your own opinion.