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.
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...uggles between the savagery and civility, he and Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), are men threatening, as well as standing, in the way of the progress and later the stability of the soon to be established “recognized territory.” There are two very different characteristics of these men though, Tom is full aware what is happing to in the New West and eventually succumbs. Meanwhile Liberty knows this is happing too, but he will do, as he must to keep the frontier open, for purely selfish reasons. This is the swan song of the boots, the gun belt and the spurs, the inevitable end of freedom that was once known since its inception at the establishment of the United States of America, but the Western was and still is today, a vast frontier of compelling stories, classic American narratives and themes that will continue to capture the imagination of all freedom loving people.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
My analysis begins, as it will end, where most cowboy movies begin and end, with the landscape.Western heroes are essentially synedoches for that landscape, and are identifiable by three primary traits: first, they represent one side of an opposition between the supposed purity of the frontier and the degeneracy of the city, and so are separated even alienated from civilization; second, they insist on conducting themselves according to a personal code, to which they stubbornly cling despite all opposition or hardship to themselves or others; and third, they seek to shape their psyches and even their bodies in imitation of the leanness, sparseness, hardness, infinite calm and merciless majesty of the western landscape in which their narratives unfold.All of these three traits are present in the figures of Rob Roy and William Wallace--especially their insistence on conducting themselves according to a purely personal definition of honor--which would seem to suggest that the films built around them and their exploits could be read as transplanted westerns.However, the transplantation is the problem for, while the protagonists of these films want to be figures from a classic western, the landscape with which they are surrounded is so demonstrably not western that it forces their narratives into shapes which in fact resist and finally contradict key heroic tropes of the classic western.
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
As history cascades through an hourglass, the changing, developmental hands of time are shrouded throughout American history. This ever-changing hourglass of time is reflected in the process of maturation undertaken by western America in the late nineteenth century. Change, as defined by Oxford’s Dictionary, is “To make or become different through alteration or modification.” The notion of change is essential when attempting to unwind the economic make-up of Kansas in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Popular culture often reveres the American cowboy, which has led him to become the predominate figure in America’s “westering” experience (Savage, p3). However, by 1880 the cowboy had become a mythical figure rather than a presence in western life. The era of the cowboy roaming the Great Plains had past and farmers now sought to become the culturally dominant figure and force in the American West. Unlike the cowboys, farmers were able to evolved, organizing and establishing the Populist Party. The farmers’ newly formed political organization provided them with a voice, which mandated western reform. Furthermore, the populist ideas spread quickly and dominated western thought in the 1880’s and 1890’s. The period of the 1880’s and 1890’s marked the end of the American cowboy and gave farmers a political stronghold that would forever impact the modernization of the West.
The Taming of the West: Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons of the Frontier 1840-1900.
When the average modern American thinks of the Old West, they often think of cattle drives, outlaws and lawmen, and John Wayne; things they see in western movies. Another staple in western movies is the range war, it is important for modern Americans to know which parts of the west were true and which were false. The range wars of the late 1800’s were important to rights and responsibilities because they changed the way many people lived in the west and midwest, finally stating the concept of private and public property.
The image of the cowboy as Jennifer Moskowitz notes in her article “The Cultural Myth of the Cowboy, or, How the West was Won” is “uniquely
In his book, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, author John Rollin Ridge introduces readers to a fictional character, who is a larger-than-life bandit. According to the story, Murieta set out on a path of revenge and organized a large band of outlaws to terrorize Californians. Murieta and his men committed terrible and bloody crimes (including robbery and murder). This pattern of criminal behavior continued until the band was pursued by mountain rangers, ending the story in a dramatic climax for the protagonist. However, this story is not an accurate depiction of the important elements of the “New” West according to author Patricia Nelson Limerick, in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. Instead, the character Murieta exemplifies many of the myths of the American West and the idea of innocence.
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.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
Gunslingers, outlaws and cowboys all are conventional imagery that is found in the western genre. This Godforsaken Place by Cinda Gault utilizes these images along with several other aspects of a typical western novel to offer a compelling consider the genre. With the addition of classic historical western figures, such as Annie Oakley the sharpshooter, the James-Younger Gang of outlaws and the iconic “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the novel brings compelling western elements into play. It depicts numerous recognizable aspects of the western genre, through its use of outlaws, rule breaking and the Native Indian conflict. (Perret) Though the genre is challenged from its core by the protagonist of the story, Abigail Peacock and the iconic Annie Oakley.
Because of the outlaw hero’s definitive elements, society more so identifies with this myth. Ray said, “…the scarcity of mature heroes in American...
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...
If you said the words Wild West to someone, no doubt they would picture a mustached man sitting at a card game in an old saloon surrounded by cowboys and prostitutes. A player opposite him would be hiding an extra card up his sleeve, and soon enough he would be called on it and face off in the city square. Both players would step back and there’d be a long moment before the cheater moved for his hip holster, however he wouldn’t be fast enough. The gamer would draw his revolver and shoot the cheater dead between the eyes. Nonchalantly, the cowboys and prostitutes would go back to their drinks like it didn’t happen.
Those words begin a classic tale of heroism that takes the reader into the eyes of the champion, the protagonist, who will undergo a series of trial and tribulations and, with the help of fellow characters, succeed and return to normal society. In other words, the protagonist undergoes the monomyth cycle. Author Stephen King’s magnum opus (masterpiece saga), The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I, tells of a lone gunslinger, Roland Deschain of Gilead, who ventures out in chase of the man in black. Roland, assisted by helpers, journeys across the desert, into the mountains, and at the same time tackles many challenges. The Gunslinger embarks on a journey where good is in confrontation with evil undertaking the monomyth cycle, which requires him to experience various tests, including starvation and treacherous terrain, haphazardly obtaining a helper, all of which leads him into the final confrontation forcing him to choose between what he “cares for” and what he “most desires”.