The story was full of symbolism, for instance, the explanation of Jack Potter's feelings aboard the train are too extreme for the purposes of pure parody; it is an overstatement to illuminate a fundamental change in Potter's position—from marshal to husband, and from Western townsman to a newly minted representative of the East. Therefore, I soon began to interpret the text as a grieving elegy that laments the passing of the old West whilst deploring the rise of the new, 'civilized' values of the Eastern world.
