The Orchard Keeper

The short prologue with which the novel opens establishes several of its key thematic concerns. The image of the metal embedded in the tree prefigures the image of Kenneth’s body in the pit, with the warping of the tree in response to the intrusion foreshadowing the way in which Kenneth’s murder symbolically taints the entire community. Cormac McCarthy’s works often employ biblical parallels, and in this case, the metal and the murder function as forms of original sin—an allusion that the presence of the tree underscores. The prologue also encapsulates the way in which humanity and nature interact throughout the novel, introducing the theme of The Chaos of the Wilderness. The tree’s absorption of the metal fence into its structure suggests the futility of human efforts to tame or control nature, which will inevitably reclaim or repurpose those efforts. However, while the men view this as nature thwarting their will, it’s notable that the tree’s pattern of growth is a response to human actions. McCarthy does not let humans off the hook for their own questionable or even immoral behavior.

The Orchard Keeper then moves on to two accounts of criminality. Both Kenneth and Marion are from Red Branch. They do not know one another, but numerous elements of their stories overlap and intertwine. Both men are veterans of World War I, where they witnessed violence at an unprecedented level, and once they returned to Red Branch, they brought their violence and their trauma with them, turning to crime. By showing how both men veered toward criminality after their involvement in World War I, the novel suggests that violence begets violence and trauma begets trauma, establishing the theme of Cyclical Violence.

The history of the Green Fly Inn also illustrates a key issue with the community in Red Branch. The people of Red Branch are insular. They value their traditions and customs to the point where they would rather drink in the notably dangerous Green Fly Inn than a new establishment. The Green Fly Inn is theirs; its refusal to adhere to building codes or safety standards is an act of defiance in the face of government oversight and intrusion, even when the bar collapses. However, with The Encroachment of Modernity, relics like the Green Fly Inn are untenable. The inn burns down, its glass and metal melting into fossilized remains. In this way, the collapse of the Green Fly Inn foreshadows the fate of Red Branch, another obsolescent institution that will be erased by the end of the novel. The bar, like the community itself, cannot hold off modernity forever.

The contrast between Marion and Arthur is an important part of The Orchard Keeper. Marion and Arthur both reject institutional authority, but their methods of doing so are different. Following the collapse of his marriage, Arthur becomes fiercely independent. He takes an amoral stance on issues such as bootlegging, refusing to cooperate with the government or the law in such disputes. He watches Marion from afar as Marion illegally makes more money in a few nights than most people make in a month of work, and later in the novel, when he finds Kenneth’s body, he doesn’t report it to the authorities. While Arthur abstains from involvement in any kind of institutional discipline, Marion explicitly rejects the law. He makes his money by moving whiskey illegally during Prohibition or by selling whiskey without paying government taxes. Arthur provides an idealistic rejection of government imposition, investing himself in high-minded ideas of independence and self-reliance. Marion represents a selfish version of the same argument, rejecting government imposition in the name of profit. Most people in Red Branch have the same fundamentally isolationist beliefs, though they choose to express these beliefs in different ways.