The Wild West Rides Into The Sunset Essay - 1389 Words

Connor Lucas ENG 3080J Hollis February 20, 2014 The Wild West Rides Into The Sunset Have you ever read a text that included items such as a bold cowboy, trusty horse, beautiful female, or a dark villain in a dry, isolated, and undeveloped setting? If so, it’s a great possibility that you were reading a classic Western. Many readers of this genre would describe its stereotypes as what I listed above. You can almost always find that protagonist cowboy hero, who tends to be a good-looking and sharp character that fights the dirty, rugged, evil villain in an epic climax while trying to save his gorgeous and innocent lady. The setting is often a flat, unpopulated, and undeveloped town, surrounded by mountains. The Western genre played a†¦show more content†¦However, Kolb describes Marshal Jack Potter as â€Å"a nervous unarmed honeymooner, who rides a train instead of a horse† (98). In the story, Potter is described as wearing a new black suit that most likely was purchased in San Antonio (23). This gives the reader the idea that the East influence d the West a great deal, considering a hard-nosed, sharp-shooting town hero most likely should not be wearing a new suit that was made in the East. The stereotypical western criminal is mean, dirty, selfish, and constantly stirring up trouble. In â€Å"The Bride,† your criminal is Scratchy Wilson. However, as Kolb describes, the difference between Scratchy and most other Western villains is that Scratchy’s â€Å"main crime seems to be that he cant hold his liquor† (98). The eastern culture is brought up again in the story through Scratchy’s clothes. You’d expect to visualize a rough and dirty character whose soul is as dark as his clothes. With Scratchy, you get a criminal wearing a â€Å"maroon-colored flannel shirt† that was made in New York (24). Crane uses these characters to portray an idea to his reader’s that the influence the East has on the West is far greater than the average person would expect. Expectations for a women in a Western story are generally perceived to be a beautiful, innocent,Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Book The Wild West : The Mythical Cowboy And Social Theory ``1707 Words   |  7 Pagesbe supported with information from Slotkin’s book â€Å"Gunfighter Nation†, Will Wright’s book â€Å"The Wild West: The Mythical Cowboy and Social Theory†, John White’s book â€Å"Westerns†, and Jane Tompkin’s book â€Å"West of Everything, The Inner life of Westerns† and various films which consist of William A. Wellman â€Å"The Ox-Bow Incident†, Fred Zinnemann â€Å"High Noon†, John Ford â€Å"The Searchers†, Sam Peckinpah â€Å"The Wild Bunch†, and Robert Altman â€Å"McCabe Mrs.Miller†. Old western movies are one of the most classicRead MoreAmerican Idols of the Old West: Cowboys1271 Words   |  5 Pages Cowboys are the American idol of the â€Å"Old West† pictured as silhouette riding out over the prairie on their horse with the sunset ahead of them. They are what shaped the entire cattle raising industry in America. A study of the cowboy way of life helps us to discover the hardships they faced and the experiences that every cowboy has witnessed. The cowboy is usually pictured as a full grown man working hard in a pasture or in a set of pins but in reality, cowboys started off at ages as early as 7Read MoreThe Holy Fool Archetype1667 Words   |  7 PagesPhiladelphia to San Francisco, he continually finds himself in trouble with thieves, the law, and Native Americans, yet escapes each trial with unwavering persistence and a steady religious devotion. Set in the mid 1800’s, at the height of the American â€Å"Wild West† era, the film serves as a parody of the traditional Western hero, substituting an inexperienced, yet cagey Jewish Rabbi for the usual hardened, gun-slinging cowboy. As detailed by Matthew Turner in his â€Å"Black Sheriffs and Villains in White Hats:Read MoreNo Country For Old Men1745 Words   |  7 Pagesbut in Chigurh’s mind, everything happens for a reason. No Traditional Justice No Country for Old Men goes against the archetype of the classical American Western; the law abiding, just protagonist defeats his evildoing opponent, and rides off into the sunset. However, NCFOM presents none of this. You see the protagonist, a morally grey laborer, gunned down, and not even by the main antagonist. The protagonist’s wife, an innocent woman completely removed from nearly all events of the narrativeRead MoreThe Truth about Cowboy Types1782 Words   |  7 Pagesa wide-brimmed hat, a belt of bullets, and a flannel shirt; he might be guiding his herd lazily along grassy plains, singing folk songs around a campfire with his companions under a starry sky, riding off with a beautiful ranch girl into an iconic sunset backdrop, or even wearing a mask and enforcing vigilante justice in a small town terrorized by hardened western thugs or hostile Native Americans. These clichà ©s are drawn mostly from the hundreds of movies and television productions that claim theRe ad MoreThe Egyptian Culture Of Egypt1316 Words   |  6 Pagesinscriptions the glyphs are very detailed an in full color. When the Egyptians began to write, they wrote from the beginning in ink, on papyrus. Papyrus is a plant that grows wild all over the Nile River valley, which is to say it is very common in Egypt. At first papyrus was only used in Egypt, but by about 100 BC people all over West Asia began buying papyrus from Egypt and using it, since it was much more convenient. The modern Egyptian communication has changed a lot from the ancient one. EgyptiansRead MoreMy Day On A Summer Day2150 Words   |  9 Pagessomewhere extravagent. In my mind pictures of crystal clear waters and sugar white sand filled my imagination. The Carribean? Dominican Republic? France? Anywhere outside of the country would be absolutley breath taking... well anywhere outside of the mid-west atleast. Snapping out of my day dream Chayce, my youngest brother at the time asked me to put his shoes on. I hated putting on his shoes it was like cutting a tree with scissors. â€Å"Push Chayce!† i yelled â€Å"I am! You’re hurting me! he replied.† AfterRead MoreClassical Hollywood1981 Words   |  8 Pagesopposite between the East of America and the West. Cities already established In the East are presented to us as feminine and cultured places, contrasting with the ‘wild west’ . In director John Fords The searchers(Ford,1956,US) we see the iconic John Wayne star in a celebration of the spirt that vanished with the taming of the American wilderness. This is an indication of the system of the East taking hold and our heros evidently have no more sunset to ride off into. Read MoreAnalysis Of The Movie The Grand Parade 1764 Words   |  8 Pagescompetition participants dressed in fishnet tights and Old West bustle skirts. The competition winner, known as the â€Å"Oil Queen,† sat smiling in a white wicker throne before a glittery cutout of a derrick gushing a rooster-tail of crude. Most associate the Central Valley with agriculture. But here in the dry southwestern corner of the vast basin, oil is the undisputed king. The â€Å"giant† oil fields that envelop the town of 9,000 – the Midway-Sunset, Cymric and Belridge – are among the largest in the countryRead More Australian Camels Essay3530 Words   |  15 Pagescamels. They are the Bactrian, or two-humped camel (C. bactrianus), and the Dromedary (Arabian), or one-humped camel (C. dromedarius). The Bactrian camel is native to Chinese Turkestan and Mongolia, and probably lived as far west as Iran and eastern Russia.[2] There are few wild herds of Bactrians remaining in the world today. Those that are left can be found roaming the Gobi Desert and in the mountains of China and Mongolia. Domesticated versions of the camels are readily found throughout central