In Annie Proulx’s work Close Range she tells stories that emphasize the rugged landscape of Wyoming and how it has shaped the characters in her short stories. In the short story “A Lonely Coast” Proulx uses the Narrator and her friend Josanna Skiles, as the models for what life is like for a single woman in the rugged, masculine, male-dominated culture of Wyoming. Josanna’s boyfriend Elk functions as the personification of the state of Wyoming, pushing Josanna to her limits until she snaps, just like the landscape of Wyoming pushes its residents to the point that they either leave or die there. Josanna and the narrator are friends and co-workers, giving the narrator a unique perspective as she watches her friend deteriorate. In the opening of the story the narrator talks about a house fire on the prairie saying, “And you might think about the people in the burning house, see them trying for the stairs, but mostly you don’t give a damn. They are too far away, like everything else.” (Proulx, 189). The narrator compares Josanna to this house fire, you see it burning but there is nothing you can do to help but simply watch it as it turns to ash and embers. Josanna’s character before she meets Elk is depicted as a typical country girl who is tough and doesn’t take anything from any one. When Elk becomes a part of Johanna’s life she quickly looses her toughness and becomes complacent with Elks control over her because she was tired of being isolated and lonely for so long. To better understand Josanna’s attachment to Elk one must understand her background and where she was in her life when she met Elk. Josanna and the narrator had both been married before, marriages that like Wyoming were not easy, “Wyos are touchers, hot-blooded an... ... middle of paper ... ...n further and further away until she just becomes another burning house. Josanna’s suicide relates to her life in Wyoming in that it she had become a part of Wyoming and it a part of her. Its rugged landscape leaves a mark on those that live there, like the narrator admits in the beginning of the story “I wasn’t going to leave Wyoming. You don’t leave until you have to.”(Proulx, 190). Josanna had spent so long attempting to block out where she was from with drugs and alcohol that when she finally had Elk she felt as if she had finally found her peace with who she was. When Elk died, a part of Josanna died as well, as if a part of who she was or her identity had been ripped away leaving her no where to turn because to her it was as if her home was gone. Elk was Wyoming and Wyoming was Josannas identity, and when he died Josanna decided that it was her time to leave.
Mackey, Mike. "Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics." Journal of the West 42(2003): 25-31, 33.
West, Elliott, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, (University Press of Kansas,
The setting of the essay is Los Angeles in the 1800’s during the Wild West era, and the protagonist of the story is the brave Don Antonio. One example of LA’s Wild West portrayal is that LA has “soft, rolling, treeless hills and valleys, between which the Los Angeles River now takes its shilly-shallying course seaward, were forest slopes and meadows, with lakes great and small. This abundance of trees, with shining waters playing among them, added to the limitless bloom of the plains and the splendor of the snow-topped mountains, must have made the whole region indeed a paradise” (Jackson 2). In the 1800’s, LA is not the same developed city as today. LA is an undeveloped land with impressive scenery that provides Wild West imagery. One characteristic of the Wild West is the sheer commotion and imagery of this is provided on “the first breaking out of hostilities between California and the United States, Don Antonio took command of a company of Los Angeles volunteers to repel the intruders” (15). This sheer commotion is one of methods of Wild West imagery Jackson
In the world of Appalachia, stereotypes are abundant. There are stories told of mountaineers as lazy, bewildered, backward, and yet happy and complacent people. Mountain women are seen as diligent, strong, hard willed, and overall sturdy and weathered, bearing the burden of their male counterparts. These ideas of mountain life did not come out of thin air; they are the direct product of sensational nineteenth century media including print journalism and illustrative art that has continuously mislead and wrongfully represented the people of Appalachia. These stories, written and told by outsiders, served very little purpose to Appalachian natives other than means of humiliation and degradation. They served mostly to convince readers of the need for so-called civilized people and companies to take over the land and industry of the region, in particular the need for mineral rights, railroads, and logging as the mountain folk were wasting those valuable resources necessary for the common good.
When looking at the vast lands of Texas after the Civil War, many different people came to the lands in search for new opportunities and new wealth. Many were lured by the large area that Texas occupied for they wanted to become ranchers and cattle herders, of which there was great need for due to the large population of cows and horses. In this essay there are three different people with three different goals in the adventures on the frontier lands of Texas in its earliest days. Here we have a woman's story as she travels from Austin to Fort Davis as we see the first impressions of West Texas. Secondly, there is a very young African American who is trying his hand at being a horse rancher, which he learned from his father. Lastly we have a Mexican cowboy who tries to fight his way at being a ranch hand of a large ranching outfit.
Jim’s feeling of loneliness has a big impact on his view of Alena. If Jim met another girl that day on the beach, and who was not as attractive he would have acted very different. Jim was very vulnerable at that moment and needed som...
Montana seems to be one of those states that most people either love or hate. It is so distinct from any other state that it is no wonder this is the case. Montana is in so many ways such a great state to live in, with a wide variety of recreation, hobbies, and other enjoyable pastimes; however, many problems plague the state, from its lack of modern conveniences to its poor job opportunities. What many people do not realize is how much these good and bad characteristics are related.
Her poetry is greatly informed by her childhood in hockey town Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with that environmental aesthetic often forming the backdrop to her stories of poverty, alcoholism, and the natural world. As a prairie girl myself, it’s easy for me to picture the agricultural landscapes and rustic animals described in poems such as “Inventing the Hawk”. Her authorial voice is wistful yet confessional, a voice that looks back fondly, but not blind to the issues of the past. Sex is also a recurring theme of her work, and the intimacies of her relationship with her husband Patrick Lane are a common topic of her work. One of her poems, “Watching My Lover”, tells of Lane bathing his dying mother, the mother’s scent lingering "so everyone who lies with him / will know he’s still / his mother’s son". Animals from cats to horses feature heavily in her work, tying in once again to her love of nature.
Annie Proulx, Edna Annie Proulx in full,was born August of 1935 in Norwich, Connecticut. Growing up, she was the oldest of five sisters. Her dad was vice president of a textile company. She moved around often as a child and attended to Colby College in Maine, where she met her first husband. Proulx left school, and began working various jobs. She then went on to the University of Vermont in 1963, and then George Williams University located in Montreal in 1973. In the early seventies, Proulx began writing articles in magazines such as Esquire and Country Journal. Her big breaks came when she had two stories published in The Best American Short Stories in 1983 and 1987. She wrote her first fiction book titled, Heart Songs and Other Stories in 1988. Her first novel, Postcards (1992), won a Pen/Faulkner award and she was the first woman to achieve this honor. The Shipping News, the story of Quoyle and his family who leave the United States move to Canada after the death of his wife, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Her next novel was Accordion Crimes, which follows an Old World accordion’s travels to the United States through the immigration of an Italian man. She has also published three collections of stories that take place in Wyoming’s vast landscapes, where Proulx settled in 1994. It includes Brokeback Mountain, the love story of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, which has since been adapted into a movie. In her most recent work, a memoir titled Bird Cloud (2011), she recollects the building of her home in Wyoming. Britannica writes, her “darkly comic, yet sad fiction is peopled with quirky, yet memorable individuals and unconventional families.” Annie Proulx creates flawed characters who work through change and...
Born in Home, Pennsylvania in 1927, Abbey worked as a forest ranger and fire look-out for the National Forest Service after graduating from the University of New Mexico. An author of numerous essays and novels, he died in 1989 leaving behind a legacy of popular environmental literature. His credibility as a forest ranger, fire look- out, and graduate of the University of New Mexico lend credibility to his knowledge of America’s wilderness and deserts. Readers develop the sense that Abbey has invested both time and emotion in the vast deserts of America.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
Labrie, Janet M. "The Depiction of Women's Field Work in Rural Fiction." Agricultural History 67 (Spring 1993): 119-33. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2012.
Novels that exhibit what the life is like for the people at ranch can help readers reflect on how they might react in comparable situation. George and Lennie who struggle to transcend the plight of inerrant farmworkers are followed by the novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck. Readers are positioned to respond to themes through Steinbeck’s use of conventions that are dispirit. Themes such as Freedom and confinement, loneliness, and racism are pivotal in the novel and draw out a range of responses from the readers.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)