Marija Dalbello

Reading Interests of Adults

Western

RutgersSchool of Communication and Informationdalbello@rutgers.edu

Image credit: Victor GAD

Overview _______________________________________ Introduction

What is Western?

Genre characteristics and appeal

“The Formula”

History and types

• Conclusion

What is a Western?_______________________________________

Takes place or is about the West Formula Western Western novels Novels of the West

Industrialization and urbanization (19th century)

American myth of the conquest of the frontier

Monumental “coming of age” plot - the child within

Men’s romance?

Western Writers of America at: http://www.westernwriters.org

What is a Western

Men’s romance? _______________________________________

Manhood as ideal - romance of solitude

Hero at the center - self-reliant, independent • Reversal of the ideal of womanhood as represented in romantic fiction

• Escapist fantasy which glorifies individualism and need to be reunited with nature

• In reaction to domestic female fiction - conflict in the public sphere (of the 19th century)

What is a Western

Or narrative of male violence? _______________________________________

Materialistic, antifeminist, secular

Obsession with death and male suffering

Glorification of sensory action, physical violence

• Displacement of a deep need for expression of the child within, a coming-of-age plot

• Conquest of the West and the death of nature, native people, and the buffalo

Genre characteristics and appeal

What readers like _______________________________________• The hero dominates the western

• The hero is strong, self-reliant, self-sufficient, in conflict with nature, man or with himself

• Dream of freedom in a world of unspoiled nature - nature is central character

• Independence of society and the constraints of civilization

• Individual heroism at the center

• Story of conquest and survival

Genre characteristics and appeal The Formula _______________________________________ Time and place important: the myth of the West

Genre dimensions and iconography (Tompkins)• Women and the language of men• Coverage of death• Landscape• Horses• Cattle

• Story-line simple and dependent on dichotomies Nature - Society Hero - Villains East - West etc.

Genre characteristics and appeal Iconograpy, symbolism, narrative_______________________________________

Women and the language of men

Coverage of death

Landscape

Horses

• Cattle

Themes identified by Jane Tompkins as constitutive of Western

Women and the language of men

Western - antithesis of the culture of domesticity that dominated Victorian culture (women’s culture)

Women-led reformist movements and Women’s Christian Temperance Union crusade targeting whiskey, gambling, prostitution

Iconography of the western: indoor setting -saloon vs. church

Dichotomy translated at the level of discourse and iconography

Humanistic and theological discourse (religion and authority of the church) - language of women Physical action, hard boiled and terse -

language of men

“When a man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle you say that a man with a pistol is a dead man. Let’s see if that’s true. Go ahead, load up and shoot.” “When a man has money in his pocket he begins to appreciate peace.”(Clint Eastwood, in For a Fistful of Dollars)

Death

The narrative’s stylization is a way of controlling its violence

Death and suffering glorified, stylized

Symbolizes encounter of civilization and the frontier

Landscape

Setting is a character

The appeal of desert as a metaphor

Western framed within landscape (beginning and end)

Hardness and austerity - primal engagement with nature

Horses

Presence of horses in western - their disappearance in nature

Horses are vitality, wildness, hero’s connection to the earth

Body of the hero is the analogue of the horse he rides

Horse symbolizes subjugation of nature to the hero

Horse ensures survival of the hero

Antithesis to technology

Cattle

Cattle in Western is raised to be killed, not to be subjugated

Cattle is anonymous, invisible, manipulated in mass

Antithetical to freedom: to be herded and to be fenced in

Cattle is wealth

Historical development _______________________________________ Precursors and foundational works

Frontier fiction, captivity narratives James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

(1826) Beadle “dime novels” (1860) Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show (1883-1913) Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902) Karl May (European)

Western novels - notable writers • Zane Grey, Max Brand (1920s-1930s)• Louis L’Amour (1950s)• Larry McMurtry the only living classic author

• Trends Imprints for classic westerns University presses (set in respective states,

historical) Revisionist - depicting the unromanticized West Young adult and juvenile (most active) Evangelicals (Bethany House, Crossway,

Multinomah)

Types of Western _______________________________________ Thematic categorization

Native AmericansIndian CaptivesMountain MenWagons West and early settlementMerchants and TeamstersMines and miningLaw and lawmenBad men and goodArmy in the WestTexas and MexicoHired man on horsebackCattle drivesCattle kingdomsRange WarsSheepmenBuffalo RunnersCelebrity charactersSingular WomenAfrican Americans in the West, Mormons, etc.

Types of Western _______________________________________

Aspect and audienceUnromanticizedPicaresqueComedy and parodyComing of ageRomanceYoung adult Westerns

Other

The West lives on

Eccentric variations

Sagas

Series

Conclusion _______________________________________

The Western is a myth of individualism and the frontier

The conflict at the core (nature, civilization) Debates about the survival of westerns

Steady-sellers and transmedia genre

Genre of male identification