The narrator describes the duel in the following quotation, “Bain’s right hand stiffened-moved. Duane threw his gun as a boy throws a ball underhand – a draw his father had taught him. He pulled twice, his shots almost as one. Bain’s big Colt boomed while it was pointed downward and he was falling. His bullet scattered dust and gravel at Duane’s feet. He fell loosely, without contortion.” (7) What is interesting is how clean the language and description is of this act. That is to say, there is no depiction of blood or gore. Instead, there are descriptions of hands, guns, bullets, and falling. Within the narration, there exists a sense of individual items acting of their own accordance. For example, Bain is not stiff; it is only his right hand that is, and likewise Bain’s does not fire his bullet, his big Colt booms as if it has its own agency. The text makes it clear that while Duane is in trouble with the law because there were no witnesses to the duel; duels were commonplace. Moreover, had there been a third party law enforcement to turn to, Duane and Bain would not have had this duel to the death and none of this violence would have been necessary. However, because there is no such enforcement, this violence is justified and the narrator then portrays it as clean in order to highlight its …show more content…
This time however, it is between Duane and an unequivocally bad man, Poggin, and Duane loses. However, it only occurs because the law enforcement was unable to deal with the situation before it escalated to this violence. Compared to the opening violence, there is quite a shift in how the narration describes the violence in the following quotation, “Duane felt a blow just before he pulled trigger. His thoughts came fast, like the strange dots before his eyes. His rising gun had loosened in his hand. Poggin had drawn quicker! A tearing agony encompassed his breast. He pulled-pulled-at random. Thunder of booming shots all about him! Red flashes, jets of smoke, shrill yells! He was sinking. The end; yes, the end! With fading sight he saw Kane go down, then Boldt. But supreme torture, bitterer than death, Poggin stood, mane like a lion’s, back to the wall, bloody-faced, grand, with his guns spouting red!” (215) This quotation also displays the differences in the narrator’s earlier description of violence, while much cleaner in its depiction of violence than Django, now contains bias and pain. Guns no longer simply boom, they thunder multiple booms, further the narrator notes that there is supreme torture in this loss, worse than death. The last image we see of Poggin is like a lion complete with a mane and with a bloody face as though he is fresh from the hunt. The animal imagery and biased