Eat or Die: Cannibalism as Manifest Destiny in "Ravenous"
Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last post and I wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you. To make it up I have several new posts rolling out this week, the first of which is a examination of cannibalism in Ravenous . Enjoy. For those of us fascinated by horror, we can always trace back our obsession to a single film or moment in time when horror grabbed us and didn’t let go. For me one of those moments was when I watched Ravenous, a horrifying story of cannibalism set on the American frontier that draws a parallel between consuming flesh and the US desire to consume the continent that drove the theory of manifest destiny. Manifest destiny arose in the 19th century as the belief that the United states was destined to occupy the continent of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. This idea drove westward expansion in the 1800s as intrepid Americans pressed on to bring civilization and Christianity to the open frontie...