ABSTRACT
McCarthy’s second novel was published in 1968, the year when youthful and rebellious protest was as vigorous and unsuccessful on American college campuses as at the universities of Paris and London. e riotous tumult of Paris, Berkeley and the London School of Economics may seem far removed from McCarthy’s Appalachia in geographical, social, economic and political terms. I suggest however that Outer Dark, and McCarthy’s work in general, does reflect two aspects of what is now seen as a crucial period in the life of the West. e revolt of what was mainly a student (male) class in 1968 appeared then to have more to do with the clash between youth and age than with the overthrow of capitalism and the emancipation of the working class. Of course there were social and economic forces at work that energized the various movements of protest. Many young Americans felt that the requirement to fight in Vietnam was not motivated by a rational need to defend American interests. e Civil Rights movement still found that progress towards racial justice had as yet not matched expectation. A decade of growing affluence and technological development had seen a radical change in attitudes towards sexuality, drugs, authority and materialism generally, especially among the young and this had produced tensions in conservative societies such as America, Britain, France and Germany. is conservatism was matched, ironically, in the countries of Eastern Europe, which also experienced political protest, although of a much more serious, but less successful nature (in the short run).
