The Buffalo Hunt Francis Parkman Analysis

Duke Lee once said, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” and it became one of the most iconic western saying of all time. The old west was full of outlaws, gangs, murderers, thieves, and lawmen who either broke the rules, or enforced them. Outlaws of the wild west influenced American culture in numerous ways. The three outlaws listed below are the most notorious and gruesome of them all. Take a journey through history and look at what these outlaws did for American society.

John Ford built a standard that many future directors would follow with his classic 1939 film “Stagecoach”. Although there were a plethora of western films made before 1939, the film “Stagecoach” revolutionized the western genre by elevating the genre from a “B” film into a more serious genre. The film challenged not only western stereotypes but also class divisions in society. Utilizing specific aspects of mise-en-scène and cinematography, John Ford displays his views of society.

The American western frontier, still arguably existent today, has presented a standard of living and characteristics which, for a time, where all its own. Several authors of various works regarding these characteristics and the obvious border set up along the western and eastern sections have discussed their opinions of the west. In addition to these literary works by renowned authors, one rather convenient cinematic reference has also been influenced by these well-known, well-discussed practices of this American frontier. “True Grit”, a film recently remade in 2010 by the Cohen Brothers, crosses the boundaries of the west allowing all movie-goers to capture one idea of the western world. The movie, along with a few scholarly sources

Hunting is an extremely controversial topic in the U.S. Since the beginning of history, man has hunted animals for food to live and to utilize other parts for clothing and other essential reasons. There are many people who are strongly opposed to hunting and think that it should be banned. There are also many people that support hunting and think that it is an acceptable thing to do. One such writer, Rick Bass, describes a similar emotion in his essay, “Why I hunt”. In the essay, he emphasizes his deep love for hunting and claims that it is an enjoyable activity. He employs such details to his story describing his surrounding beautifully that towards the end of the article, his attempts to appeal to reader’s imagination strengthen his

One of the chief culprits, he concludes, is Wyoming's manufacture of a false history around cowboy mythology. While the bucking horse is one of Wyoming's most identifiable symbols (it's on every Wyoming license plate), Western notes that Wyoming's key early settlers were, in fact, wealthy merchants who, from the beginning, had an

In the short essay “Why I Hunt” by Rick Bass, the writer gives the reader his personal perspective of what hunting is like for him. Rick Bass goes on to share the story of his family’s move from the hills of Fort Worth, Texas to the very remote Yaak Valley of Montana. The move to this area makes Bass want to hunt more since there is a better variety of prey, and due to everyone that has lived in what Bass calls “the Yaak”, has hunted their entire lives, he feels obligated to do it more than what he did when he lived in Texas (655). In “Why I Hunt, Bass argues that his love for hunting is an enjoyable hobby that develops his imagination and gets him in touch with nature, and that people should put down technology and try hunting. Bass uses imagery to show the beauty of hunting, and pathos to describe his emotions towards hunting.

Many a time has Hollywood skewed the difference between reality and fantasy, exaggerating the truth and placing heavy importance on the myths. A recent historical movie was made about the Alamo. This movie though very historically accurate was different from the documentary; I will compare the two and show the differences. The movie was

Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State. Brooks Blevins. Fayetteville, AR. 2009. 242 pages

According to the film critic, Phillip French, “The Western has always been about America rewriting and reinterpreting her own past,” if this is indeed the case, then the two most popular Westerns of the early 1990s reveal that many Americans had rejected the traditional interpretation of the Old West. The critically and commercially successful, Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, repudiated the patriotic frontier myth that had characterised the Western when it was the preeminent genre in American cinema. Informed by new Western historiography, itself an expression of political concerns that had been moving into the American mainstream since the 1960s, the movies display a complex and nuanced understanding of the frontier experience. Dances with Wolves rejected the traditional narrative of the inherent superiority of the Anglo-American hero conquering both Native Americans and the wilderness, and also focused on the environmental destruction that accompanied the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Unforgiven would similarly reject the frontier myth, replacing the democratic, civilised frontier town, with a brutal regime in which white men’s property rights prevail over any sense of justice. The film is noted for its self-reflexive nature, with a writer documenting and embellishing the tales of the Old West before the viewer’s eyes. This self-reflexion indicates that Americans were re-evaluating the myths of the frontier, and seeing them for what they were, creations by the

How many times has Hollywood taken a true story and turned it into something different? Hollywood took Chris McCandless’s story and turned it into an overdramatic work of art. Unlike Krakauer’s nonfiction best seller Into the Wild, the movie Into the Wild by Sean Penn overemphasizes ideas or fails to include crucial evidence which twists the viewers understanding of Chris McCandless’s life. The movie overemphasizes Chris’s parents’ relationship and the effect it has on him, creates a love interest for him in “Slab City”, and fails to mention Chris’s knowledge of the wild. Sean Penn’s film skews how people will remember Chris

As the story of both the novel and the movie move it shows descriptions or images of setting. They both romanticize the setting of the west due to its beauty and how it represents freedom. In The Searchers there are long unbroken shots of the nature that makes the West represent freedom and independence from the normal life. While All the Pretty Horses does the same thing in the from of paragraph long descriptions of setting it does it to not only represent freedom, but also as a way of justifying the life of a cowboy. ¨The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led. In the evening a wind came up and reddened all the sky before him. There were few cattle in that country...a solitary bull...in sacrificial torment¨(pg. 302). The realistic life of a cowboy is full of disappointments, but McCarthy argues that the life that connects to nature is worth all the disappointments and things that are lost.¨The blood of

Since Christianson’s work is a foreword to Cody’s autobiography, it depicts Cody in a relatively positive light. It largely focuses on the importance of Buffalo Bill – describing in the thesis how this image attributed to “a sweeping narrative that places the American frontier at the center of

According to some, including author Frederick Jackson Turner, the frontier was one of the most pivotal periods to take place in the progression of American history. Bret Harte’s short story “The Luck of Roaring Camp” is one of the best pieces I have read from The Frontier Era. Nature is used on several occasions throughout all of these writings. In “The Luck of Roaring Camp”, the forces of nature are what ended up taking baby Luck and Kentucky’s lives and in the descriptions given about the animals in “The Scavengers.” Other uses of nature in Harte’s short story were the men who lived in this California desert named Roaring Camp were all miners so their source of income was provided by the land that they were living on.

Typically referred to as ‘Indians’ in popular culture, Native Americans were traditionally seen in Westerns as the antagonists. The Western genre typically tells the story of the colonisation and discovery of America, which saw the major Hollywood studios revive the interest in the Western. Westerns draw on “historical actuality, a romantic philosophy of nature, and the concept of the […] savage” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3). Westerns often split the “depiction of the Indian, with the cruel and treacherous [Indian] balanced by the faithful [Indian]” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3) which resulted in the portrayals of Native Americans witnessed in films today.

The movie True Grit is set in a chaotic time period of the American Frontier known as the “Old West,” or the “Wild West.” The American Frontier describes the “edge of a settled area.” Throughout the 18th and 19th century, the frontier continued to expand westward. In the mid-1800s, the frontier had been pushed into Nebraska and Kansas. Gold mines were attractive sources of wealth for many to move West. Eventually, railroads were built that connected the Western states and the East.(“American”). Throughout the West, many towns began to flourish in population due to the attraction of mines. Gambling also became a prominent source of entertainment. Although the West holds many opportunities, it also holds its fair share of difficulties. The climate was dry, the land was difficult to farm. Money was often short. As people struggled for their opportunities, chaotic violence became a telling point of the Old West (“The Western”). The task of controlling the violence of the West often fell into the hands of U.S. Marshals. They became renowned in the latter half of the 19th century for their heroics acts of punishing the lawlessness of the frontier towns (“U.S.”).