Western canon

A group of seven misfits comes together to save a town from an evil, money seeking man in the film The Magnificent Seven directed by Antoine Fuqua. James Horner and Simon Franglen’s film score in The Magnificent Seven transported me back to the old west. Horner and Franglen effectively utilized the unique timbres of select instruments, texture, and foreshadowing making the audience feel as if they are riding along side the misfits, a character in the story experiencing all that unfolds on the…

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance examines the Old West in a flashback. It compares and contrasts how the past emerges into the present. As viewers, we are trying to understand how the forces of civilization, now the present, can conquest “the law of the West,” from the past. In the duration of the present, the heroes of the Old West are only called a myth. There are three different individuals in the movie. There is Ransom Stoddard, Tom Doniphon, and Liberty Valence. Random Stoddard is an…

The Searchers, a film directed by John Ford (1956) is a classic American Western featuring America’s original cowboy John Wayne. In the film, the main protagonist Ethan Edwards comes home to Texas after fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Both John Ford and John Wayne depict Ethan Edwards as an extremely isolated, bitter, and misunderstood character. When Ethan finally comes home from the war he mistakes one of his brother’s children for another child that has since full grown in…

different. For over a hundred years the “Western” style of film has cemented itself as a hollywood staple, but has the exhaustion of its content pushed the limits of what it means to be a western? To accurately depict what it means to be considered a true Western, we first must reference the most notorious movies it has to offer; Shane, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. These movies amongst many others follow a series of elements that fits them into the Western Genre. Takes place in the…

The literary canon is a list of books chosen by scholars that displays the books that have been influential to western culture. The books chosen have been placed under this list because they contain important information that has impacted America. The controversial part of these “canonized” books is that they have been selected by “important” scholars. The system of canonizing a book lacks the diversity that the western hemisphere has, therefore, not all the western cultures are being…

Many readers that love the western writing genre can argue that Zane Grey is one of the bestselling western writers of all time. His novels The Lone Star Ranger and The Spirit of the Border are two examples of this. In these two novels Grey does a good job at showing the differences of the west during two different time periods when Native Americans roamed the lands and when cowboys and outlaws ruled the west. When examining the two novels, it will show the stereotypical views of the west,…

Each of these points is crafted largely through what Bloom considers a close reading of the western canon, the classical texts of the ancients which Bloom thinks contemporary universities have abandoned. It would be wrong to critique this book simply on the grounds…

Driving through the Western University gates on Richmond Street in the Fall of 2011 was my first glance into a place I would soon call my home; although, I did not know it at first. As an impressionable 17-year-old, I did not have a clue as to what I was looking for in a university. I felt a variety of emotions when touring Western during my last year of high school, including, but not limited to, excitement, insecurity, anxiety, and confusion. Such a large campus overwhelmed me; however, I…

decades. Westerns in film have been a huge portion of this identity. First, it began with documentation of Daniel Boone explorations, then on to the dime store novel. Western film would be the biggest influence on American identity. Visual media of the west aroused America’s fascination with unconquered lands and the promise of new beginnings. These visions additionally formed ideals of supremacy, a sense of entitlement, and subjugation. Consistent themes prevailed throughout the Western and…

ideas, and opinions is the man depicted in the Hollywood Western. That man, or person, is the settler, cowboy, or lonesome traveler who traverses the Western frontier in search of his place in and the promise of America. As America expands its frontier to the West during the nineteenth-century, the depiction of what it means to be a heroic settler formed in the American psyche. When films came to the silver screen the genre of Hollywood Westerns created protagonists who exemplified qualities…