The Western Formula
Beginning of paper
A seemingly traditional approach towards the Western frontier is the reason for John Cawelti’s assessment from The Six-Gun Mystique. His description of being “far easier to define than that of the detective story” may clearly be a paradigm for many authors, but not particularly ....
Middle of paper
.... in the inner meaning of an issue rather than its surfacing argument.
Cawelti’s Western formula holds a strong assumption that men are assertive and women are insignificant. He is standardizing the black and white of the West. There is an unequivocal struggle between good and evil—and guns and violence can only solve that. Jane Tompkins standpoint on a Western seems to be a middle ground between Cawelti and Crane. She recognizes that violence is a central theme to a Western, but ....
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Word count: 1326
Page count: 5 (approximately 250 words per page)
