In his final novel, Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe delivers a warning and an antidote. The warning concerns the widespread disbelief in God and the renunciation of values. In this vacuum flows nihilism, hedonism, and zero-sum power dynamics. Wolfe dramatizes this sociological prognosis in Back to Blood, where his hero, Nestor Camacho, becomes the sole light bearer of traditional morality, namely chivalry. After obtaining a definition of chivalry using historical sources and modern scholars, this paper will show how Tom Wolfe in Back to Blood resurrects the chivalric ideal and endorses it as a solution to our present ethical crisis.

DOI: 10.1353/chy.2024.a930544

Category: scholarly article