In the center of the town, known to the people as Jackson, stood the oldest building in the state of Wyoming. Made from old brittle bricks, it stood surprising strong. Although it was in the center of town, people seemed to ignore it, it was always left empty. To one person ,however, it held a special place in his heart. It was a safe haven for Will Rogers. A young boy of twenty-five years old, who didn’t quite mix with society. With his boxy face and slivers for his eyes, (1.) he was the town introvert who tried to be one of the “cool” cowboys. The main building was his place to escape from the brutal old west.
One day, as Will was walking home from work, he felt strange. Almost as if someone was following him. He turned around several times to see if he needed to draw his gun. However, every time he turned around there was no one there. He quickly went home. Laying in bed that night, Will started
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writing in his journal about his experience walking home. “...I turned around with my hand upon my gun…” Will read aloud to an empty room. Finishing up his journal entry, he went to bed. The next morning, Will still could not shake the feeling that someone was following and watching him. He decided to take the day off to go to his safe haven and calm himself down. “ Good Morning Mr. Rogers!” said Mr. Orwell, Will’s neighbor and one of the few people who treated Will with respect. “Good Morning Mr. Orwell!” Responded Will. “I found this ol’ rope layin’ around the other day, it made me think of you! I know you really like ‘em rope twirling tricks, thought you might find a use for it.” Mr.Orwell said, handing Will the rope and walking away before Will had a chance to give thanks for the wonderful new rope he had received! He began twirling it around and around as he walked to town. BANG! Will was thrown back into a wall, smacking his head and left arm against the hard bricks of the old town building. “What the heck just happened?” Will breathed out as he grasped his head. How did he get here? He was just walking through a field, in the morning. Now, it was night and he was in his get away place. Dazed, head throbbing, Will stood up and explored around. “Excuse me, sir?” Will asked a passing bystander. “Yes?” the man answered, “What day is it?” said Will. “Wednesday.”said the man. Wednesday? How can it be Wednesday? Will picked up the lasso he had just been given. Staring at it, he saw a slight glimmer coming off of it. Will’s thoughts were all unclear. Confusion just about summed up Will’s entire figure during this time. After sitting on the dusty and cold dirt, Will came to his senses and come to the conclusion that the whole situation was due to the fact that he had gotten a new lasso. Taking a leap of faith, Will swung the lasso around and around just like he had done. BANG! He again was thrown to the ground. But, this time he was back! Right in the field walking to the building he was just in, and it was morning again! He needed to be sure though. “Excuse me, sir, what day is it?” Will repeated the same question he had asked the other bystander, “Why, it's Tuesday Mr. Rogers!” replied the man. “Yippie, yahoo, yeeha!” cried Will while leaping and jumping with joy. He now knew his thoughts were correct. He had a time traveling lasso! How it worked he didn’t know. Nevertheless, he didn’t question it. One disadvantage he learned about this “catch” of a lasso, was that there was a two hour gap whenever he traveled. For example, when he first left to the future, it was nine o’clock in the morning, when he returned it was eleven o’clock in the morning. Over the next few weeks Will experimented with this wondrous lasso. He recorded his travels in his journal and explained that the lasso only allowed him to go three days into the future and three days into the past. Not much of a range, but how could he complain? How many people did he know that had a time traveling lasso? None. After much consideration, Will had finally made the decision to tell the one person he trusted, his wife Helen. Helen was a stay at home wife who made the best meals in town. Will loved her with all he had and wanted to share this wonderful discovery with her. She loved Will and treated him like he was just like everyone else, she showed respect. Will loved her, especially for that reason. That was the deciding factor that lead him to tell her about the lasso. “Helen, I need to speak with you.” Will said, holding back the excitement that was bubbling up inside of him.
“What is it, dear?” Helen responded, walking into the small living room from the kitchen with her hands still went from the dishes. “I came upon a new lasso, and you won’t believe what it can do!” Will said enthusiastically. “Oh, really? And what might that be Mr. Rogers?” Helen stated while walking closer to Will. “It some how lets me travel into the past and future.” Will let out while holding his breath to see her reaction. “It what?” Helen said, not sounding extremely convinced of what her husband had just said. “It can time travel.” said Will. “Whatever you say Will.” responded Helen, accepting whatever craziness might come of this.
One weekend, Will decided that he wanted to go down to the bar to get a drink to help calm himself down after months of time traveling. He had to cross through a couple valleys to get to to the bar. (3). After a couple drinks, Will wandered back to his house. When he opened the door, he found his wife dead on the
floor. “Helen! Wake up! What happened? Who did this?” poor Will cried as he held his dead wife in his arms. Blood covered her head and Will knew that she had been shot. There came no response from her lifeless body. Will was distraught, he could not process what was happening. Tears streamed down his face and everything seemed to go blue. However, once he gathered his senses, he knew exactly what to do. He planned to back into the past to save his true love. Will didn’t know exactly when his wife had died, or by whom. So finding the exact time to when to go back was a problem. He only had a limited amount of days to find out or else he wouldn’t be able to go back far enough to save her. He went back as far as he could and lived in the past for about two days hoping to find out what had happened to his beloved wife. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he wandered around in the past so he hid himself down in a mine until the day that his wife was going to die. He left for home around the time that his past-self departed for the bar. Sprinting, panting and completely out of breath, Will burst into his own house to find his wife baking his favorite pie. She was fine, nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Nevertheless, Will stayed with Helen all afternoon to protect her. Just as the sun was setting, there came a giant smashing sound on their door. Will knew what was coming, so he prepared to draw his gun. Helen ran in from the back room and hid behind Will, squeezing his arm so tight that it started to go white. With one big bang, the door went crashing to the ground. In walked none other than Mr. Orwell! “Mr. Orwell! What are you doing here?” Will asked, hoping that his suspicions were completely wrong. “I think we both know the answer to that question, Will. Stand aside boy, let me to your wife.” Mr.Orwell said walking menacingly toward Will. “If you’re so adamant about having her, duel me for her.” Will blurted out without really thinking about what he had just said. “Sounds just right fine t’ me boy. Prepare yourself.” Mr. Orwell said calmly. Will was lost for words and actions, he was frozen with fear. All of a sudden, Will felt something tickling his arm. His lasso. Helen had brought it to him and stared up into his, begging for Will to understand what she wanted him to do. And Will just that. “On three.” Mr. Orwell said. “Sounds good to me.” Will replied with a new found tranquility. The countdown began, and before Mr. Orwell had time to react Will threw the lasso around him and twirled harder than he had ever twirled before! The glimmer appeared and the familiar whooshing sound could be heard a mile away! “No! What are you doing? Will stop this now!” screeched Mr. Orwell. “No, you deserve this. You gave me the rope in the first place in hope of getting rid of me so you could steal my wife, and maybe even kill her!” replied Will holding his head high and cleaving his wife to himself. The whoosh went away and Mr. Orwell had gone somewhere into the past or future, but the lasso stayed there lying on the floor. Mr. Orwell wouldn’t be bothering them anymore. Will had saved the day and more importantly, his wife. After everything that had happened, Will decided to put the lasso away and to just live in the moment with his beautiful wife. And they lived happily ever after, down in the old west.
McCarthy’s plot is built around a teenage boy, John Grady, who has great passion for a cowboy life. At the age of seventeen he begins to depict himself as a unique individual who is ambitious to fulfill his dream life – the life of free will, under the sun and starlit nights. Unfortunately, his ambition is at odds with the societal etiquettes. He initiates his adventurous life in his homeland when he futilely endeavors to seize his grandfather’s legacy - the ranch. John Grady fails to appreciate a naked truth that, society plays a big role in his life than he could have possibly imagined. His own mother is the first one to strive to dictate his life. “Anyway you’re sixteen years old, you can’t run the ranch…you are being ridiculers. You have to go to school” she said, wiping out any hopes of him owning the ranch (p.15). Undoubtedly Grady is being restrained to explore his dreams, as the world around him intuitively assumes that he ought to tag along the c...
The times are changing and he's unwilling to give up the past. The world is becoming modernized and people like him, cowboys and ranchers, are slowly disappearing. He runs away from home because he desires to find peace within himself as well as a place where he can feel he belongs. Here begins the adventure of John Grady and his best friend Lacey Rawlins. It is important to note here the means of travel. The story is taking place after World War II, a time when cars are fairly common, yet these boys decide to go on horseback, like in the fading old days. This is just another concept of how they are unwilling to give up a fading past. When they first begin their journey, the boys are having a good time. In a sense they?re two buddies on a road trip with no real motive. Rawlins even mentions, ?You know what?I could get used to this life.? Then they meet Blevins, the foil in the plot that veers the two boys of their course and also has plays a role in the lasting change of their personality. Their meeting with him gives an insight into Grady?s character. Rawlins is against letting Blevins come along with them, but because of John?s kind nature he ends up allowing Blevins to come. It?s because of this kindness and sense of morality, he gets into trouble later on.
“This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona” discusses the physical and mental journey of Victor, a Native American man in the state of Washington, as he goes to Phoenix, Arizona to claim his father’s remains and his savings account. While on this journey, Victor learns about himself, his father, and his Indian culture with the help of his estranged friend, Thomas Builds-the–Fire. The author, Sherman Alexie, plays on the stereotypes of Native Americans through the characters of Victor and Thomas. While Thomas is portrayed as the more traditional and “good” Native American, Victor comes across as the “bad” Native American. Through the use of this binary relationship, Alexie is able to illustrate the transformation of these characters as they reconcile with each other, and break out of these stereotypes in the process.
Fifteen years separate Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” The two share an eerie connection because of the trepidation the two protagonists endure throughout the story. The style of writing between the two is not similar because of the different literary elements they choose to exploit. Irving’s “Sleepy Hollow” chronicles Ichabod Crane’s failed courtship of Katrina Van Tassel as well as his obsession over the legend of the Headless Horseman. Hawthorne’s story follows the spiritual journey of the protagonist, Young Goodman Brown, through the woods of Puritan New England where he looses his religious faith. However, Hawthorne’s work with “Young Goodman Brown” is of higher quality than Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” because Hawthorne succeeds in exploiting symbols, developing characters, and incorporating worthwhile themes.
Most Americans probably believe our times are different from Washington Irving’s era. After all, almost 200 years have passed, and the differences in technology and civil liberties alone are huge. However, these dissimilarities seem merely surface ones. When reading “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” I find that the world Irving creates in each story is very familiar to the one in which I grew up. The players may have changed, and institutions have mostly replaced roles traditionally taken on by people, but the overall pieces still fit the rural lifestyle of contemporary America.
[1] The silent film, With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness, was produced in 1926: a time of prosperity, an era without the skepticism of the modern American mind. People were not yet questioning the stories and histories they had been taught as children. The entertaining story told in this Robert North Bradbury film is loosely based on the life of an American hero. However, the presence of several insidiously inaccurate historical representations demonstrates how an entertaining film might not be as innocent as it initially seems. This film fails to question certain key issues concerning the Daniel Boone legend. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The creators of this film wholeheartedly bought into the many warped myths and distorted “facts” surrounding the story of Daniel Boone. Amazingly, the ethnocentric (read racist and colonial) ideals found in 19th century whites apparently still existed in 1926, and, to a certain extent, still do today. This essay will explore the factors that contributed to the twisted representations found in With Daniel Boone Thru the Wilderness. Hopefully, the work of this essay and many others like it will help the next generation of Americans (and filmmakers) to avoid the same injustices and societal pitfalls that have plagued mankind for ages.
When one thinks of the United States of America, they probably consider our history, our culture, our media, our impressive cities and the extremely wide variety of beautiful wildernesses that we are lucky enough to still enjoy. We are lucky enough to have a melting pot of cultures in this country, and many different kinds of people. However, when thinking of an original, all-American figure, cowboys come to mind for many people. Our history and the settlement of the U.S. was unlike any other country, and the development of the country in the more western states came with the unique and fascinating time period referred to now as “The Old West”. The Old West was a crucial time in American history, and though it was a simpler time it also came with its share of excitement. Some of the most memorable details about the Old West were the characters that came with it, and some extremely interesting ones were the least conforming- the outlaws. Jesse Woodson James was one of the most notorious outlaws in American history. His name would go down in history as one belonging to a tough as nails and fearless bank robber who led a group of outlaws across the mid-west robbing banks and trains, and even murdering people. When we look at the big picture of what the U.S. has become today, The Old West certainly has had a large impact on our culture, and Jesse James certainly had a large impact on the Old West. Though most would argue that he was not a decent or moral person, one cannot argue that he was still a very interesting and unique icon of the west. So how did Jesse Woodson James change and leave his mark on the United St...
An Analysis of the Movie ?Good Will Hunting? and the Main Characters Will Hunting and Sean Mcguire
Romantic Author James’s Fennimore Cooper created characters in the tradition of independence and self-control. Apart of his “Leather Stockings” series, “The Last of The Mohicans,” uses the American frontier an aesthetic articulation of male Identity. (“Masculine Heroes” American Passages Voices and Visions) In an excerpt from Cooper’s classic, “From Volume I Chapter III”, (Cooper. 485-491) the reader is introduced to the recurring character Natty Bumppo – referred to as Hawkeye-- and his friend Chingachgook. Both men can be seen as representations of the American Frontier, Heroes that embody the mythic elements in Cooper’s setting. They are rugged frontiersmen that thrive self-sufficiently, in a world of harsh realities.
In Annie Proulx’s work Close Range she tells stories that emphasize the rugged landscape of Wyoming and how it has shaped the characters in her short stories. In the short story “A Lonely Coast” Proulx uses the Narrator and her friend Josanna Skiles, as the models for what life is like for a single woman in the rugged, masculine, male-dominated culture of Wyoming. Josanna’s boyfriend Elk functions as the personification of the state of Wyoming, pushing Josanna to her limits until she snaps, just like the landscape of Wyoming pushes its residents to the point that they either leave or die there.
The character this film is primarily centered around is Will Hunting. Will lives in a tattered house in a bad neighborhood in the city of Boston. He grew up in foster care where he sustained continual physical abuse as a child. Will has a few close friends he is always with but never opens up about anything below surface level. Will is incredibly gifted with intelligence however he works as a custodian at the highly prestigious school, MIT. Professor Lambeau teaches advanced mathematics at MIT and is the one who discovers Will’s incredible talent for solving advanced mathematical theory. Professor Lambeau has high hopes for Will and pushes him into getting jobs with prestigious employers so that his gift is not wasted working as a custodian. Chuckie Sullivan is one of the closest of Will’s friends. They’ve known each other for years and Chuckie drives Will to work every day. Chuckie cares for Will and realizes the gift that he has and tries to convince Will he should be doing something of greater importance with his life. Skylar is a college stu...
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.
First, Jackson begins by establishing the setting. She tells the reader what time of day and what time of year the story takes place. This is important to get the reader to focus on what a typical day it is in this small town. The time of day is set in the morning and the time of year is early summer. She also describes that school has just recently let out for summer break, letting the reader infer that the time of year is early summer. The setting of the town is described by the author as that of any normal rural community. Furthermore, she describes the grass as "richly green" and that "the flowers were blooming profusely" (196). These descriptions of the surroundings give the reader a serene felling about the town. Also, these descriptions make the reader feel comfortable about the surroundings as if there was nothing wrong in this quaint town.
As you walk down the streets of Arcadia Nebraska, you look from side to side and see nothing more than a quiet little town. What you probably aren’t aware of is the history behind this “little town”. Arcadia is built off of determination, character, and distinctiveness. As you make your way down Main Street, you start to grasp a glimpse of the past. Arcadia Nebraska is a village with quite a story to tell. Not many people know about how this little town was founded or even how it came to be. Arcadia has dealt with struggles and overcome tragedies that most towns simply would have died away if they had faced. In addition to the charm of Arcadia’s perseverance, there are also many fun and interesting facts about Arcadia that will dwell long in your mind. Everywhere you look, stories are deeply rooted into Arcadia’s family tree.
We Like It, We Love It, We Want Some More of It: The Allure of Time Travel