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The Day the Cowboys Quit Essay

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The Day The Cowboys Quit The Day the Cowboys Quit is a novel written by the highly acclaimed Texas native, Elmer Kelton, in 1971. Kelton was born April 29th, 1926 in West Texas. Throughout the early years of his life, Kelton was raised on a ranch and attended college at the University of Texas to study journalism. Over a span of about fifty years, Kenton was hard at work delivering western novels, most of which are based in Texas. The novel The Day the Cowboys Quit received the Spur award in 1971 for the best western novel. This is only one of about forty novels written by Kelton who has received prestigious awards for many of his novels. The opening of the novel presents a prelude of how life for the 19th century cowboy was and how …show more content…

Prosper Selkirk, John Torrington, and Lafey Dodge are on the other side of the spectrum as they are the antagonists that represent big corporation. Each prominent character adds to the storylines thickness and to the adversity Hitch must come to face. The story starts out with Hitch, Law, and Rascal working under Charlie Waide on a cattle drive through Texas. The first conflict in the novel arises when ownership of a cow is in question between Rascal and a fellow cowboy. This small infraction ultimately sets the precedent of the story as the ownership of cattle becomes a problem that builds up to the main conflict. As the story progresses forward, Law is caught violating the cowboys’ set of unwritten laws as he tries to cheat other cattle owners out of cattle, an offense he would repeatedly make throughout the novel that leads to his death and would add fuel to the main conflict over cattle ownership. The title of the book is a direct reference to the cowboy strike of 1883, which is represented in the novel when the cowboys left their jobs as cowhands for the cattle drives and demanded higher wages, hoping to cripple the big cattle companies that hindered the cowboys with their issuing of strict rules. Going against his own morality and wishes, Hitch takes half of Charlie’s men and leads them to join the strike. Hitch himself is a strong independent man that always keeps his promises which is also

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