Browsing by Subject "Western stories -- History and criticism"
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Item Contextualizing Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy: an annotative approach(Texas Tech University, 2000-08) Bell, James LutherThis dissertation, Contextualizing Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy: An Annotative Approach, attempts to delineate and amplify the details of McCarthy's three most recent Western novels and serve as a useful reference for serious scholars as well as casual readers of the Border Trilogy. After brief introductory materials in Chapter I, Chapters II-IV include a chronology, character index, and index of place names for each of the three novels. Annotations of cultural and historical allusions in the trilogy follow in Chapters V and VI. Maps of regions traversed by characters and significant to the plots of the novels are included throughout the dissertation. Information about arrangement precedes each section of the concordance.Item Riding for a Fall: genre, myth, and ideology in Cormac McCarthy's western novels(Texas Tech University, 2003-05) Brannon, William CarlAlong with the detective story, the Western may be classified as a singularly American genre of fiction. This dissertation focuses on the presence of recognizable narrative structures inherent to the Western genre and myths associated with the American West in Cormac McCarthy's Western novels, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. This dissertation begins by briefly defining what constitutes the Western genre, building upon the definitions of genre, myth, and ideology provided by Richard Slotkin in Gunfighter Nation (1992). In turn, each of McCarthy's four Western novels are considered by focusing on how each novel exhibits the narrative conventions of the Western genre and depicts the cultural myths and ideological concepts associated with the American West. The incessant violence in Blood Meridian serves as an indictment of Manifest Destiny suggesting that the process of westward expansion necessitates the subjugation of others and in turn creates brutal conditions conducive to the existence of Glanton's scalp hunters and similar parties. The primary myths associated with the American West in All the Pretty Horses involve its cowboy hero John Grady whose actions are motivated by a combination of his nostalgia for the past and his yearning for a romanticized agrarian way of life he associates with the past. The Crossing depicts the freedom of movement associated with the American West and questions the effects of human interaction with the natural world made most evident in the rescue of the wolf Cities of the Plain focuses on the familiar trope of the redemption of a fallen woman, represented by the epileptic teenage prostitute Magdalena. In each novel Cormac McCarthy appropriates recognizable narrative structures and cultural myths associated with the American West to explore the viability of the Western genre. In doing so, McCarthy affirms James Folsom's assertions in The American Western Novel (1966) that the purpose of the Western story does not consist solely of a realistic depiction of the history of the United States, but instead the Western story has become "a metaphorical parable of the inconsistencies and contradictions" (29) that informs the American Experience.Item The evolution of the Western: the original American novel(Texas Tech University, 2003-05) Untiedt, Kenneth LeeThe Western, as it has come to be recognized as a genre, originated in the United States fewer than two hundred years ago. It has since become one of the most popular—and perhaps the most mfluential—genres in American literature. It could even be argued that it is our "National Literature," as it embodies many of the ideals that Americans believe to be inherent in them: fighting for justice, perseverance, and independent success. The Western has had extensive effects on other types of literature, encouraged the westward movement in this country, shaped the film and television industries, and inspired and affected political and social movements which can still be feh today. Respect for the Westem has come slowly, but because it so effectively captures the American ideology, there has been a persistent demand for critical studies of the genre. However, the few studies that do focus on the Western are inherently limited because they each address only specific aspects of the genre, and none clearly defme what is meant by the term "Western." This dissertation is the first study to provide both a comprehensive definition of the Western and an analysis of its evolution. This study will fill the gaps left by other works that have examined the Western only in limited ways, and show how they are related to each other and the genre as a whole. To accomplish this, the study will be presented in two parts: the first consisting of the essential elements of the Western, and the second consisting of the developmental stages of the genre. Because the genre has evolved throughout its history, no single stage of its evolution will be overlooked or held in higher regards than another. The genre has matured greatly from its early days as a romanticized and formulaic form of escapist literature to a level of high art in the case of certain works. This study will show the significance of the genre by defining it and examining its development, not just in one period or by identifying specific authors, but in its entirety.Item The triumph of tradition in six novels of Elmer Kelton, 1971-1998(Texas Tech University, 1999-05) Blanton, Ira YatesIn "Reperceiving Ethnicity in Western American Literature," Robert F. Gish classifies Elmer Kelton as "among the much revered and canonized Western novelists" (38). Western American novelists have traditionally glorified and romanticized the settlement of the American West, and the majority of their so-called heroes were Anglo-Americans who, in their efforts to feed and clothe their families, pushed ever westward onto the frontier, driving out those who had inhabited the West for centuries. Some traditional Western writers justified this conquest of the West by saying that Native-Americans initially gained their lands by violently taking them from other Natives, so that Anglo settlement was just a continuance of the past. Some felt no justification was necessary; the land was there for the taking. In this Triumphalist view, Anglo-American advancement was a God-given right called Manifest Destiny.