The Western Formula
A seemingly traditional approach towards the Western frontier is the reason for John Cawelti's assessment from The Six-Gun Mystique. His description of the Western formula being "far easier to define than that of the detective story" may clearly be a paradigm for many authors, but not particularly for Stephen Crane. The standards Cawelti has set forth for a successful Western is quite minimal by thought, but at the same time relevant. Crane signifies a different perspective to these standards. Crane's thoughts for the use of the Western formula are just approaches towards the west, from the introductory setting to the coarse grin one cowboy would make towards another. These do not in fact relate to Cawelti's Western formula. Crane's deviation from the formula western signifies his deeper approach towards issues such as human existence and morality-the ethical code that we follow for success. Crane perhaps does this because he personally finds more significance 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 betwee
The fact that there was no brawl, but just a simple murder, no struggle between evil and good contradicts the formula western. This was not a black and white, hero and villain situation, rather an annoyance. The entire story had complete irrelevance to a stereotypical Western except for the fact that there were three daughters of the hotel owner, Scully, and they made food. That could be the only potential relation to Cawelti's feel on womens' insignificance. "So instead of offering you a moral, I call your attention to a moment of righteous ecstasy, the moment when you know you have the moral advantage of your adversary, the moment of murderousness. It's a moment when there's still time top stop. There's still time to reflect, there's still time to recall what happened in High Noon, there's still time to say: "I don't care who's right or who's wrong. There has to be some better way to live" (Tompkins 239). Throughout the entire story, the ideas of violence arise, but the actions upon them do not. This is a very bad path Crane chose if he was looking to depict a formula western. If this story was to follow the standards Cawelti has set forth, Potter would most likely be dead and Scratchy Wilson would be marking another notch on his gun belt. The macho male attitude has been covered by the marks moral principles. Cawelti feels there is no room for that in a formula western. Tompkins feels, "This is a moment of moral ecstasy." In another story by Crane, "The Blue Hotel," the Western formula can hardly be considered. The first half of this entire story is based in a hotel, bed and breakfast type of inn where there are several men sitting around a table playing a card game. However, none except for one is a cowboy, and the setting does not relate too much to the West, besides their slang vocabulary. In ways, it seems that some random person, who not only did not live in the West, but also did not live in the country, could have written this story. It was so far off basis of a Western that all one
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1367
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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