The Woman With No Name in Monte Hellman's The Shooting Works Cited Missing Generally forgotten by critics, and classified as alternately a cult classic and a B-movie (in reference to both its budget and its reception), Monte Hellman's The Shooting is a film worth revisiting. At a remote camp in the middle of the desert, a Woman With No Name arrives to hire two men to lead her to the town of Kingsley, days after one of the camp members was shot dead and another ran away. On their descent into the scorching desert, it becomes apparent that the Woman has misled her employees as a hired gun joins their party and they continue their journey, it would seem, to execute somebody. The Woman from time to time physically leads the pack, and is always …show more content…
At the heart of the scene is the metaphor central to this opening shot; that of male instability, masculinity in crisis. Coley has given his horse to the Woman With No Name and rides on the back of Gashsade's steed out of necessity. He has given up his means of transport, his agency. Without his horse, Coley lacks mobility in the narrative and his position as a male is challenged. The male body is celebrated in the Western with "the phallic image of a man on horseback, sitting high above the ground, upright and superior, gazing down at a world whose gaze he in turn solicits" (Mitchell, 167). This celebration, typical of the genre is denied. Coley shares the space of the horse with another man and that superiority is negated. Gashade's power is challenged even further as he is forced to stoop over the front of his horse (shot 3) as if to carry the burden that is Coley. Masculinity in the Western is "not simply a blunt biological fact... (but rather) a cultural fiction that must be created, then re-created" (Mitchell, 155). These male characters are without the ability to create a masculinity for themselves. As "the Western is invariably pitched toward an exhibition of manly restraint" (Mitchell, 155), Gashade and Coley can never …show more content…
To 'have' the cinema is, in some sense, to 'have' the woman" (Doane, 498). Yet a returned gaze denies that possibility to have her. This action upsets expectations of the viewing experience and brands this woman as a threat. As "the voyeur ... must maintain a distance between himself and the image" (Doane, 499) representative of the distance between desire and its object, the voyeuristic act is turned on its end in this scene. The apparent interaction of the screen and the viewer breaks the act of viewing a spectacle and forces the audience's gaze away from the object of voyeurism. This is in keeping with the tradition of the intellectual woman who "looks and analyzes, and in usurping the gaze ... poses a threat to an entire system of representation" (Doane, 504). The woman as looker is an affront to subordinate female roles. Mulvey points out that men "cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification (and are) reluctant to gaze at (their) exhibitionist like" (Mulvey, 488). The general roles of "woman as image (and) man as bearer of the look" (Mulvey, 487), become complicated through Hellman's camera placement in the scene, and work with the narrative by reinforcing the Woman With No Name's position as an independent and determined woman, and emphasizing Gashade's and Coley's struggle with the
He soon realizes that the boarding of a wild stallion upon the Drake causes the excitement in the air. With much struggle, the stallion is placed in a makeshift stall within the ship and it causes quite a ruckus as its hooves crack against the wood and its whistle pierces the air. Alec has an immense love for horses and one night he gets a chance to visit the stallion up close. He witnesses the horse with its head out the window of the stall staring at the expanse of the ocean, but once it sees him it whistles once more and retreats into the darkness. The boy leaves a sugar cube on the windowsill for the stallion and then returns to his cabin for the night. Each night after, Alec continues to leave a sugar cube for the horse to eat once he has retreated to his cabin for the night.
...ring for him he has to find something to care for and by talking to the horse he is, in a nutshell, caring for it. So, as the reader can see, desire is a recurring theme that permeates the novel.
The rugged frontiersman, the wealthy self-made entrepreneur, the stoic lone wolf; these are classic archetypes, embodiments of an enduring mythos-- American Masculinity. The doctrine of ideal manliness and its many incarnations have occupied a central place in American literature since colonial times. These representations that still exists in countless cultural iterations. The literary periods studied in this course were witness to writers that continually constructed and deconstructed the myths of paternal heroism and ideal masculinity. From Romanticism to Modernism authors, like James’s Fennimore Cooper, and F. Scott Fitzgerald helped to create the lore of American Manhood by investigating cultural notions gender and self that were emblematic of their time.
America for the most part, has been considered the land of freedom and opportunity. Unlike “Hell Heaven,” and “No Name Woman,” “The Storm” took place in America only. Calixta committed adultery by kissing Alcée Laballiére on the lips and allowing him to sexually touch her while her husband was away from home. Most women in America practice Christianity and is little to no consequence for committing adultery. Calixta only felt shame for kissing Alcée Laballiére compared to Ana, who had to fear for her life for following the law. American women have the choice to choose their husbands and wouldn’t be penalized for being in public with men who weren’t their husbands. Calixta had more freedom as a mainland American woman than Boudi and Ana. If
...g in that dangerous situation. Once again, it often results in the male being responsible, with a few exceptions, to provide complexity and unpredictability to the character. If there was any doubt that the actions of the male protagonists of overcoming danger wasn’t enough, the element of a masculine figure protecting or saving a female character made sure to declare the masculinity of the character. On a regular basis the presence of dangerous situations is directly responsible for the degree of masculinity of a character.
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy may seem like an ordinary tale of a young man and his heroic Western journey but in reality, it is a complex web of the actions and reactions of characters, specifically the actions of the women in John Grady Cole’s life and his reactions to them. His actions can be directly tied to a decision that one of the female characters in the story has made. Their roles directly affected the path he took throughout the story, suggesting that this is not just a coincidence but moreover a correlating sequence of events. As a Western novel, the plot development that women principally dictate John Grady’s fate is unusual, yet important to his character and the story’s events.
In literature, it is important to investigate the smallest of things, but it is also imperative to see the bigger picture. Our text states: “The farce ends with bitter irony, showing the hopelessness of its defeated characters against the legalistic precision and economic forces Flem represents” (Puchner 374). Without one character or the other, the whole story would fall apart and would not make much sense. Flem, the narrator, and everyone down to the horses are key for making “Spotted Horses” what it
Deborah Tannen’s essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman”, explores the idea of “marked” and “unmarked” words, styles, titles, and how females have no ability to choose an unmarked position in life. She posits that “The unmarked forms of most English words also convey ‘male’” (88). Tannen is incorrect in her premises because females are able to choose unmarked hair and clothing styles, men are marked just as often as women, and many unmarked forms of words no longer convey “male.”
Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman" revolves around a wife and mother who becomes overwhelmed with her husband and child and withdraws from them, gradually shutting them completely out of her life. Unsatisfied with her role as dutiful mother and wife, she tries on other roles, but finds that none of them satisfy her either. She is accustomed to a specific role, and has a difficult time coping when a more extensive array of choices is presented to her. This is made clear in this section of the story.
From an external viewpoint, most men are physically stronger than women. As shown throughout history, this factor directed men to assume superiority and domination on women, treating them no more valuable than slaves. From a very young age, girls are taught to be feminine – nurturing, modest, and virtuous – while boys are raised to be masculine – independent, strong, and stoic. Gender discrimination has continued to widen with these early teachings. In our society, young women continue to face the central issue of being inferior to men through social prejudice, stereotypical obligations to the home, and scientific assurance.
In “No Name Woman,” Kingston establishes the desire
D.H. Lawrence’s writings often mirror elements of his own life, though they contain decidedly fictitious components. The characters in Lawrence’s The Rocking- Horse Winner closely resemble his own family. Like Paul, Lawrence was seeking a way out of the misfortune of pre-war London living. Unlike Lawrence, Paul is already well-to-do. Paul’s search consists of a yearning for affection and acceptance. In The Rocking-Horse Winner a young boy finds a certain calling within himself that serves to vastly improve the standing of his entire family. However, Paul’s supernatural ability to choose the winners of horse races is but a cursory assessment of the story’s secrets. Digging deeper, the reader becomes aware of a darker meaning to Paul’s wild rides. There are two things are revealed throughout Paul’s character development; first, that he is seeking his mother’s affection. Secondly, in doing so, there is an apparent autoeroticism linked to his seemingly innocent rocking-horse.
Her screenplay is really a cornerstone of the film’s success. Dialogues are full of salt; all events unfold in close connection to the individuality of characters, who take decisions; and, on top of that, all of the characters themselves are quite lively and creatively different. A film always reflects the inner world of its screenpwriter. On the other hand, although an audience might watch the same movie, every viewer perceives and interprets differently the symbolic meaning of presentational media used by a filmmaker, implications of a plot and actions of characters from one's own subjective point of view. It must be noted that a film is able to address the unconscious of a viewer directly via sound and visual effects and can affect a person in a much greater variety of ways than other forms of art like literature, music or painting can do.
Kingston’s “No Name Woman” is a story that revolves around morals, society and family expectations, and women role in society. Kingston writes the story of her aunt that committed suicide in China and she has never heard of until her mother spoke of her once. The purpose of Kingston story is to show women role in China and how women were trap in their society.
Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil is a free-form style travel diary told through the letters of a fictional cameraman Sandor Krasna. A woman, Alexandra Stewart, who remains unseen throughout the entire film, reads these letters. The film explores themes of time, memory, and history. In the essay “In Search of the Centaur: The Essay Film” author Phillip Lopate defines five characteristics he believes a film must have in order to be considered an essay film (245-7). It can be argued that Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil is an essay film based on most if not all of Lopate’s defining characteristics.