“The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn't know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren't.”

I hate to admit this but, despite having watched several film adaptations of his works, I had never really read anything of Cormac McCarthy's before this. As it happens I had already watched the film adaptation of the story starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed the film. I will use some of the imagery from the film to explain the themes of the story.

The Sunset Limited is a play about a dialogue between two men sitting within the confinement of the walls of one room. The two characters are called Black(who is a kind religious black man) and White(who is a well-read white man). The opening scene has Black interrogating White about his attempted suicide. Their dialogue discusses religion, camaraderie, loss, spiritual awakening, penitentiary life and many other things. The underlying theme of this discussion is suffering and death.

Throughout the dialogue each character takes witty jabs at the other, trying to get them to expose their personalities a little further. This is written down as putting someone in the trick bag. Black is adamantly trying to bring White back from his suicidal depression, trying to give him a spiritual awakening. White, on the other hand, feels human existence is meant to suffer and then end. His perspective is that what he is doing is only fair as it is part of the human condition. The dialogue swims in these philosophical and spiritual waters until the denouement.

Personalities

Let's take a look at the film poster above. Notice the imagery?



The yin-yang duality of the personalities of each character gives the story its enigma. The two personalities showcase the extreme dichotomies in differing human perceptions of reality. White emerges from the shadows of the darker side(yin) while Black emerges from the lighter side(yang). The story's themes show that Black had a darker past but is living the life of a pacifist now. Meanwhile, White had a more colorful life while now all the things he believed in seem empty, meaningless, driving him towards impending doom.

A dark, heavy, thought-provoking read. I also recommend the film if you're into minimalist, philosophical film-making.