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Marija Dalbello Reading Interests of Adults Western Rutgers School of Communication and Information...
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Transcript of Marija Dalbello Reading Interests of Adults Western Rutgers School of Communication and Information...
Marija Dalbello
Reading Interests of Adults
Western
RutgersSchool of Communication and [email protected]
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