McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy, this thesis argues, is permutated by ontological questions of what it is like, contrasted with what is, a separation between our experiences of the world, and what the world can be said to be. Under what it is like, this thesis firstly makes the distinction between our experiences of the physical world, and our claims about the world, explored through the concepts of landscapes as journeys, and histories as tales. Through an array of multidisciplinary sources these concepts are explored, an understanding of them within the trilogy is augmented, and the expression of these multitudinous landscapes or journeys, and histories or tales are analysed. However, amongst the esoteric musings of the trilogy’s characters, the importance of what is persists. In both sections Deleuze’s theory of immanence, a life, and a wider ontology of becoming elucidate the false nature of experience for these characters, contrasted with a reality which can only be described as immanence, change, and becoming. The result of this separation is three identifiable existential issues: the role of immanence in opposition to transcendence, the role of God in the allure of order or objectivity, and how, in the dissolvement of subject, object, truth and events, perhaps most at risk is the existence of our self. It is this final concern which becomes of vital importance, as this thesis explores not only the role, but the importance of our tales, however illusory, in creating and seizing meaning for these characters. Through the concept of the Deleuze’s three syntheses of time, and the trilogy’s concept of the Corrido, this thesis ultimately identifies one singular tale of our singular journey, a construction which unifies the tales of the trilogy, but also the trilogy itself, in their ability to speak the truth of human experience and emotion