The Lone Ranger: Unplanned Isolation and Heroism on Turner’s Frontier
Turner’s frontier hypothesis glorifies the independent hero displaying fortitude in the face of arduous challenge. However, in Frontier Literature, the constant theme of unplanned isolation underlies protagonists’ development from frontier wanderer to true frontier hero, serving as a prerequisite for the protagonists’ display of fortitude along the frontier. In L’amour’s The Gift of Cochise, McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, and Weir’s The Martian, unplanned isolation serves as the backdrop for the protagonists to prove their worth as the frontier hero. Each text provides a character of ostensible powerlessness—Angie as a woman, John Grady Cole as a young boy, and Mark
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Her ability to dictate her family’s housing location bifurcates her from the rest of the 19th-century women of her time, but she never truly encapsulates the spirit of Turner’s western hero while with Ed Lowe. Her implicit subservience to Ed in the eyes of outsiders prevents her initially from exhibiting her heroic qualities until she loses Ed in the gunfight. Her advancement along the frontier after the loss of Ed prompts Cochise to visit and ultimately revere Angie as the ultimate frontierswoman and western hero. Cochise only decides to pay Angie a visit after her successful defeat of his best fighting men, unsure of how “a lone woman with two small children [has] fought [the Native Americans] off, [when] the woman [is] scarcely more than a girl” (L’amour 56). Cochise’s actions exemplify the fact that his deference to Angie grows not merely because she advances on his land, but because she, as a single mother, successfully thrives in the American west without her husband. Only after demonstrating her own rugged individualism through her masterful shooting and her conquest of the Apache land does she earn the esteem of Cochise and the Native Americans. Furthermore, Angie’s heroic identity is best evidenced through her response to Cochise’s question about why she chooses to stay in Apache land after losing Ed when she “look[s] at [Cochise] with surprise [stating] the land is [hers], the spring is [hers]… the Apache do
The Wild West lasted throughout the 1800’s. It is what most people think about when they think of American. Many famous people came out of the Wild West. Most of them were outlaws.
In his novel, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer establishes young Christopher McCandless as a heroic and brave figure. Krakauer supports his portrayal of Chris by utilizing a narrative form and focusing on the relatable, human aspects of Chris, and by contrasting his story with the cautionary tales that are scattered throughout the history of the Alaskan wilderness. The author’s purpose is to promote his own theories and opinions on the boy’s life and death in order to establish what he believes to be the truth. The author writes in a fond tone for aspiring wilderness explorers and their critics.
Throughout “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” the theme of resilience is deliberately presented. Native Americans past and present continue to face stifling issues such as racism, alcoholism, isolation and suicide. Sherman Alexie makes it his obligation in his stories and poems to show Native American resiliency through humor. By using his characters to show resiliency through humor Alexie presents humor as an integral part of Native American survival.
In his story “The Lakota Way; Joseph Marshall III adequately convinces the reader to persevere through a series of stories that allows the reader to develop a personal connection with characters. Marshall achieves this by informing the reader and using formal diction. This allows his readers to experience how perseverance can have a positive impact on one’s life. Marshall teaches us that Perseverance represents a quality in human beings that allows us to be steadfast despite the difficulty. In the folk tale “The Story of the Giant,” perseverance is abundant; Marshall utilizes the skill of teaching to persuade his audience to persevere through the story. Marshall‘s unique way of writing allows the reader to take lessons from a story and influence them to use it in their own lives. From lya the giant terrorizing people to Indians having to leave their land because of the government to Marshall’s grandfather’s stories of hardship, Marshall shows his audience how the Native Americans have always had it rough but more importantly how they persevered.
The story of Chris McCandless has become a pop culture phenomenon. Many are fascinated by his desire to abandon his family and society and “walk into the wild” (Krakauer 69). Newscasts, magazine articles, movies, and books have tried to define what motivated him to give up everything for his Alaskan odyssey; however, the answers died with McCandless. People make assumptions about him without knowing his entire story. McCandless chose to do the unconventional, making people think he was either foolish or brave and determined, but ultimately he was selfish for doing what he did.
In a journey across the vast untamed country of Mexico, Cormac McCarthy introduces All the Pretty Horses, a bittersweet and profoundly moving tale of love, hate, disappointments, joy, and redemption. John Grady sets out on horseback to Mexico with his best friend Lacey Rawlins in search of the cowboy lifestyle. His journey leaves John wiser but saddened, yet out of this heartbreak comes the resilience of a man who has claimed his place in the world as a true cowboy. In his journey John’s character changes and develops throughout the novel to have more of a personal relationship with the horses and Mother Nature. He changes from a young boy who knows nothing of the world
The life of a ranch girl is unknown to many people across America. In Maile Meloy’s Ranch Girl, a female narrator brings the reader into her hard life being raised as a ranch girl. Through many different literary devices including, tone, mood, and characterization, the writer set the reader to feel everything the narrator depicts and the reader ingested with a heavier impact than the reader anticipates. The obligation to the community for the ranch girl is to break all stereotypes, thus showing her community and all ranch girls alike that she can be successful and break free of the ranch girl life.
In his work “Into The Wild”, Jon Krakauer writes about a young man who escaped on an expedition to invent a new life for himself. However, the reasons why he decides to partake on such journey raises many questions because Christopher McCandless lives a life of valuable possessions which his rejection of his economic class to disperse in a cultural background of nature steers Krakauer decision to report his story. Krakauer believes that a young man with a great amount of opportunities must have a logical reasons to abandon all the achievements and most importantly his family to live in the Wilderness. Although, Krakauer intends to portray McCandless as a genius of his choices and ethical to his ideas, as the book unfolds Krakauer
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India once said, “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if we seek them with our eyes open” (Nehru). In the book Into the Wild Jon Krakauer introduces the reader to Christopher McCandless’s, a young man from California with a heart yearning for adventure and a head beyond his years. The reader learns there is no one quite like Chris McCandless, but many people have sought out to seek the “more” from life. Jon Krakauer uses pathos and quirky but also thrilling anecdotes throughout Into the Wild to separate how Chris McCandless perceived himself and how others perceived him.
Throughout history, people encounter a stage in their lives where they feel the necessity to assert their independence and challenge their abilities and self-worth. In the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the author shares his understanding and kinship with the main character, Chris McCandless, a young man who thrusts himself into a life of solitude and a harsh environment during his search for meaning to his life. Krakauer depicts himself and McCandless as modern day transcendentalists with an abundance of competency, resourcefulness and skills as naturalists. Although McCandless chose to experience a life of solitude and face the hazards that nature presents, his lack of preparedness prevented him from completing his endeavor successfully.
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society,
After being forced to succumb to the destiny of life absent the ranch, John Grady is faced with making a decision that will decide his fate, a decision greatly affected by the Post World War II Texas culture in which he was being raised. John Grady could seize the opportunity that presented itself after the loss of the ranch to start a new life somewhere in Texas. He could try to fight his mother’s decision. However, the stark realization, to John Grady as well as McCarthy’s readers, is that John Grady was “already gone” the minute the ranch was taken away from him (McCarthy 27). The separation of John Grady from his familiar ranch-life was a painful idea, especially during the late 1940’s, when little other but ranching was available to native West Texans. John Grady’s life revolved around the land of “painted ponies” and “wild horses”; a land of “red wind” and “coppering” sun (McCarthy 5). Yet he found himself as a boy in
In the opening scene of Jane Martin’s “Rodeo,” there are many stereotypical props used to portray the beer-drinking, hard-working, cowboy image with the characteristic country music playing as an added touch. Most people are familiar with this type of scene in their minds, with a man as the character, but not this time – we find a tough, smart, opinionated woman with a distinctively country name of Lurlene, and the typical cowboy kind of nickname, Big Eight. The reader will dive deeper into the true character of this unusual woman and realize that she is no different from the average woman in today’s workforce. She is feeling the frustration of discrimination and the push out of the only lifestyle that she knows, by “Them” (1667).
In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven shows the struggles of daily Native American life, which is shown through the point of view of male character. All though out the book the following three questions appear: ‘What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time? What does it mean to be an Indian man? and What does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?’ Alexie uses literary devices such as point of view, imagery, characterization to make his point that the conflict of being an Indian in the U.S. in these short stories using the following short stories “An Indian Education” and “Amusement”. “An Indian Education” uses both imagery and characterization to show us what the narrator is
The birth of the Western film comes from the unknown, lone hero whom defeats the villains on the frontier. In the case of the classical plot, the hero comes into society and ultimately fights for society against the villains using their own moral code usually ensuing violence and death. In the film, Shane, the Western hero, Shane, is just this hero whom cares about the good of society and stands up to the villains. Shane inevitably leaves upon defeating the villains showing that good triumphs evil, but because of his unethical moral code of killing others he must leave society. Whereas, the Western hero in the vengeance plot, a subset of the classical plot, must first leave society to fight evil in what they believe is in the interest of society’s values.