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Character analysis where are you going
123 essays on character analysis
Into the wild character analysis
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Short Stories Essay One Last Gun Notch and Grub Line Rider are the two short stories that I am comparing. Both stories are about men who have a mind set that a certain object or land belongs to them because of who they are. In One Last Gun Notch it reads: “Well, that damned fool nester should have known better than to settle on that Red Basin land. It was Sherman’s best grazing land, even if he didn’t own it.” (L’Amour 146). It also reads: “Vic Hallam was young, and he was green. He was, they said, a fine shot with a rifle, and fair man with a gun when he got it out, but by Western standards he was pitifully slow. He was about twenty-six, his wife a mere girl of nineteen, and pretty. Despite his youth, Hallam was outspoken. He had led the …show more content…
In the story it reads: He rode on, walking the dun, and the three wheeled their mounts and came toward him at a canter. A tall man rode a gray horse in the van. The other two were obviously cowhands, and all wore guns. The tall man had a lean face with a knife scar across the cheek. You there! He roared, reining in. “What you doin’ ridin here?’’ Kim Sartain drew up, his lithe trail hardened body easy in the saddle. “Why, I’m riding through,’’ he said quietly, “and in particular hurry. You got this country fenced against travel?’’ “Well it ain’t no trail!’’ The big man’s eyes were grey and hostile. “You just turn around and ride back the way you come! The trail goes around through Ryerson.” “That’s twenty miles out of the way,” Kim objected, “and this here’s a nice ride. I reckon I’ll keep on the way I’m goin’.”” (L’Amour 194). This quote also shed light onto his possessiveness over the land: “As for you” Kim’s eyes turned on the tall man “you’d best learn now as later how to treat strangers. This country ain’t fenced, and from the look of it, ain’t used. You’ve no right to keep anybody out of here, and when I want to ride through, I’ll ride through! Get me?”(L’Amour 195). Jim Targ and Sherman both had the same belief that they could have whatever they wanted no matter the cost. They had a twisted view on how to handle things; they both used violence to rein in
Ellsworth was mean, and it was ugly. The stench of the its streets fell second to the odor of the unbathed saddle tramps who had just delivered 150,000 cattle from San Antonio to its freight yards. Adding to these smells were the blends of whisky, tanning leather, kerosene and carved carcasses, a revolting combination. Gunfights were spontaneous, either over a woman or a card game. When Wyatt crossed the Smoky Hill River into Ellsworth in 1873, he may have remembered the "rules of the gunman," but had no intention of employing them. The two main “rules of a gunman” were to take his time and always be armed. Although many people had warned him that it would be naive to go westward without being properly armed, Wyatt didn’t own a gun. All he hoped for was to find a peaceable job. But, only hours after hitching his horse in town he began to wonder if perhaps everyone was right. The most boisterous spot in town was Brennan’s Saloon, off Ellsworth Square; its faro and poker tables buzzed 24 hours, bartenders tapped beer and ...
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
The case of the so-called “Black Donnellys” is indicative of social and community relations during the nineteenth century in Upper Canada. Characterized by frontier agriculture, a growing but weak authority structure, and an influx of emigration, mob justice complemented the legal system nefariously. The arson of the Donnelly's home, as well as James Senior's imprisonment demonstrate the role of these two powers in society. I will argue that Upper Canada during the mid to late nineteenth century reacted to increased crime with both community power, in the form of vigilante justice, and legitimate authority, in the form of the penitentiary system; this uptick in crime coincided with settlement of the land by British emigrants. The factors that surrounded this phenomenon were emigration, land, crime, vigilante power, and legal enforcement, particularly the role of the Kingston Penitentiary.
The setting of the essay is Los Angeles in the 1800’s during the Wild West era, and the protagonist of the story is the brave Don Antonio. One example of LA’s Wild West portrayal is that LA has “soft, rolling, treeless hills and valleys, between which the Los Angeles River now takes its shilly-shallying course seaward, were forest slopes and meadows, with lakes great and small. This abundance of trees, with shining waters playing among them, added to the limitless bloom of the plains and the splendor of the snow-topped mountains, must have made the whole region indeed a paradise” (Jackson 2). In the 1800’s, LA is not the same developed city as today. LA is an undeveloped land with impressive scenery that provides Wild West imagery. One characteristic of the Wild West is the sheer commotion and imagery of this is provided on “the first breaking out of hostilities between California and the United States, Don Antonio took command of a company of Los Angeles volunteers to repel the intruders” (15). This sheer commotion is one of methods of Wild West imagery Jackson
Cormac McCarthy was wise in choosing the Southwest as the setting for a novel of unprecedented bloodshed. No other land would have done McCarthy’s ideas justice, given that only the Southwest harbored such wanton violence. A ...
The Taming of the West: Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons of the Frontier 1840-1900.
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
Neither of the two men was the average “John Wayne” war hero that fights and dies for his country. This is what makes these two books stand out from other war books. Both of these books also were used during the Vietnam War as anti-war books denouncing the war. One major theme that comes up in both of these books is the theme of no free will.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
middle of paper ... ... ories, but on a realistic-fiction scenario. A slum neighborhood located in “Yes, Ma’m” and a brilliant train carriage in “The Storyteller” create the setting for this compare and contrast essay. These short stories are similar in that their themes both focus on negative objects, but play them into a positive light.
Both stories, Response to Executive Order 9066 and "Mericans", establish a common American Identity theme. The main idea of these two stories is how people may or may not relate to their cultures. Both are narrated by teenage girls, and both establish a common theme that your appearance does not define you.
John Ford’s classic American Western film, Stagecoach (1939) shows many examples of political life and social behavior during it’s time. The plot is about nine travelers onboard a stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory. In the beginning, the passengers of the Stagecoach are unfamiliar with each other. However, their relationships grow as they get to know each other during their journey. Each character claims a different social position.
While the western frontier was still new and untamed, the western hero often took on the role of a vigilante. The vigilante’s role in the frontier was that of extralegal verve which was used to restrain criminal threats to the civil peace and opulence of a local community. Vigilantism was typical to the settler-state societies of the western frontier where the structures and powers of government were at first very feeble and weak. The typical cowboy hero had a willingness to use this extralegal verve. The Virginian demonstrated this throughout with his interactions with Trampas, most notably in the interactions leading up to the shoot out and during the shoot-out itself. “Others struggled with Trampas, and his bullet smashed the ceiling before they could drag the pistol from him… Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the...
In "The Thematic Paradigm", Robert Ray explains how there are two distinctly different heroes, the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero embraces common values and traditional beliefs, while the outlaw has a clear sense of right and wrong but operates above the law (Ray). Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. "The attractiveness of the outlaw hero's childishness and propensity to whims, tantrums, and emotional decisions derived from America's cult of childhood", states Ray. (309) Ray also says, "To the outlaw hero's inconsistence on private standards of right and wrong, the official hero offered the admonition, you cannot take the law into your own hands." (312) The values of these two traditional heroes contrasts clearly. Society favors the outlaw hero because we identify with that character more. We see ourselves more so in the outlaw hero than in the official hero. The outlaw hero has the "childlike" qualities that most of us wish we had as adults. To civilians it may seem that the outlaw hero lives more of a fantasy life that we all wish to have.
In The Unsettling Argument there was a settler woman and a chief from the tribe Shawnee named Green Jacket. They both wanted the same land for different reasons and had an argument over the land. Green Jacket had very strong feelings about why the settler woman and the other settlers should abandon their land so he and his tribe could have it.