Essays on The West

Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story “A Man Called Horse” transgresses some of the conventions of the classical Western genre. In this sense, Johnson’s text can be read as a “revisionist Western”, in so far as Johnson does not merely adhere to the dominant norms and...

In American culture, the West is represented as a sprawling wilderness to be dominated by mankind. The idea of the frontier began with the Puritans in the 1600s as a dwelling of evil, a godless land that needed to be claimed by a higher power,...

Bret Harte’s fiction contributed largely to the development of the Western as a literary genre. One of the earliest authors to fictionalize the American West, he spun humorous yarns depicting the offbeat gamblers, prostitutes, miners, and outright outlaws of 1850s California. These social deviants take...

A Contrast Between Beliefs Spirituality, religion, and the divine creation of humans have been central topics for many years. From the texts we have read, we see a major distinction between Western and Eastern society’s viewpoints. Western philosophy, as we have seen through our Ancient...

The Playboy of the Western World is a story about conformity and rebellion towards the law. In the play, Shawn Keogh is the ultra-conservative figure who bows towards the law with deference and meekness. At the other extreme, Christy Mahon is the rebellious figure who...

What was the intent of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine? What was its impact on the role of the US in the Western Hemisphere? The Monroe Doctrine, named after President James Monroe, was implemented in order to continue to keep free the newly...

This film represents the West Coast hip-hop culture with a comedic tone. Although many aspects of this film mocked the increasingly popular “gangsta rap”, it brought attention to the profanity, violence, and drug abuse that was valued by the subgenre. The movie is about 3...

J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play which follows Christy Mahon’s escape to a rural community of Western Ireland after striking and presumably killing his father. In the small Mayo village, authority presents itself in many facets as an...

In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque demonstrates, through the character of Paul Baumer, how war has obliterated almost an entire generation of men. Because these men no longer retain a place in life and are incapable of relating with...