>The kid was up and had seized a rock but the bat sprang away and vanished in the dark. Sproule was clawing at his neck and he was gibbering hysterically and when he saw the kid standing there looking down at him he held out to him his bloodied hands as if in accusation and then clapped them to his ears and cried out what it seemed he himself would not hear, a howl of such outrage as to stitch a caesura in the pulsebeat of the world. But the kid only spat into the darkness of the space between them.
>I know your kind, he said. What's wrong with you is wrong all the way through you.
What did he mean by this?
At the shallowest level it means he gon die.
>>7732411
But he didn't die. It was simply a little bite and he got spooked.
>>7732422
His arm was gangrenous. He was slowly dying.
However I don't think that's what the kid meant.
>>7732442
Oh, you're right about that, I meant that he didn't die when the kid said that to him.
I don't understand what the kid saw in that moment that made him condemn Sproule as he did. What could Sproule have said to bother the kid that much?
Note also that the kid gives a similarly mysterious response when the young boys he meets much later in the novel call him a liar over the origin of the ear necklace. He says...
>I knowed you for what you was when I seen ye.
I don't remember if there are any other instances of the kid saying similar things. It's very strange because the statements come from nowhere in both cases.
>>7732406
Sproule is too weak to survive what the brutality of the world around him demands.
The wound that kills him was dealt by savage men, and he carries it and all the troubles that follow with the pathetic indignity of a weak man.
When he awakens, he sees the kid over him rock in hand and in that moment the tableau is set.
He is Abel and the kid is Cain, he is the weak at the kid is the Wrathful. That weakness and foolishness is what the kid sees, he sees that it runs all the way down and that Sproule is wrong for the world he has chosen.
>>7732513
Interesting. I didn't consider what it would look like for Sproule to see the kid with the rock in hand like that. Of course, the kid wanted to smack the bat with it, but it does appear as if the kid is ready to kill Sproule in his pathetic and hysterical state.
Sproule cursed and howled and blamed everyone around him for his condition. He didn't accept the harshness and cruelty of the world the way the kid does and this provokes the kid into condemning him as a weak man. Why does the kid not feel some sympathy for him instead? After all, he didn't need to give Sproule water or aid or to travel with him despite being slowed down by Sproule's injuries, yet he did so anyway. In other parts, the kid appears almost foolishly or naively sympathetic to the condition of people around him as well. What is different in this case?
>>7732513
Your understanding of Cain and Abel is wrong but I'm merely pointing it out for your sake.
The thing to recognize here isn't just Sproule's condition, but the -judgement- the Kid renders unto him, and what it signals. We see it repeated again when the Kid -judges- the the young boys. In the first part it isn't just that Sproule is dying, look at this scene:
>Sproule was clawing at his neck and he was gibbering hysterically and when he saw the kid standing there looking down at him he held out to him his bloodied hands as if in accusation and then clapped them to his ears and cried out what it seemed he himself would not hear, a howl of such outrage as to stitch a caesura in the pulsebeat of the world. But the kid only spat into the darkness of the space between them.
Place yourself in this scene. Imagine the madness that Sproule is experiencing; the outrage, as it says.
>a howl of such outrage as to stitch a caesura in the pulsebeat of the world
But is there compassion, mercy, concern, any sense of brotherhood or identification with the slain? No there is only a distancing, a removal.
>But the kid only spat into the darkness of the space between them.
I know your kind, he said. What's wrong with you is wrong all the way through you.
By judging Sproule as wrong the Kid washes his hands and acts as an agreeing judge to what he witnesses happening to Sproule. It shows the decay of the Kids soul, a process which begins before he's even born in the first page of the book.
The Judge is the devil and the Kid is being led on a journey to perdition.
>>7732553
In accepting that reality is harsh and unforgiving, we don't give up our humanity. Nor do we in condemning those who won't.
No, they are allowed to exist precisely because there are those who will do it for them. That is why the kid spits. He condemns Sproule in his entirety but still supports Sproule.
A better question may not to ask why the kid would do this, but why anyone would, and why anyone does as they obviously do. Why does a family support a bedridden relative even though they are nothing but a drain? Why do they do this even though they spit at him when he cannot hear them?
"what did he mean by this" is degenerative and you need to quit using it. learn to communicate without memespeak
