Monday, August 27, 2007
Day one Response one
Wonderful to meet you all today. As we discussed, read 'The Problem of Definition' on Chandler's Introduction to Genre Theory listed under 'Important Links.' In addition, read Lee K. Abbott's 'The Purpose of This Creature Man,' which you should have received as an attachment to an email. It is quite out of order, but I trust you all can read the page numbers and follow along. After you've read both, attempt to answer the following question(s) in 250-400 words: Chandler suggests that defining genres such as 'the Western' is a problematic enterprise. Find details and moments (scenes) within the story which clearly define the story as a 'western.' Then find details and moments which seem unusual or idiosyncratic to your understanding of the western. Lastly, make a connection between what Chandler is trying to say (paraphrase his argument in a sentence or two) and the story as you understand it (or, to put it another way, how does 'Purpose' fit into his argument?).
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3 comments:
In my opinion the details that give us our first clue to the western nod of this story is the dialogue. Wrought with grammatical errors, we all know outlaws never made the dean’s list, and sentence scrunching contractions like; ain’t, the dialogue harkens back to the days of gunslingers and cowboys. The author follows the rich dialogue with the appropriate accoutrements for a western. I mean really, any western worth it’s salt wouldn’t be complete without it’s fair share of :
“…horse thieves, back stabbers, dry-gulchers, claim-jumpers, …”
The shoot-outs, the robberies, the way the characters were dressed, each of these things scream of a western story. Oh and let’s not forget the sawed off Winchester scattergun.
However there were a few things that I found inconsistent. Granted, I may be tainted by my love of Sergio Leone but if it is to be a western, a true grit dusty boot heels
knocking on the hardwood floor western, then they’ve got to ride around on hoarse back. Every time I started to hear spurs jangling in my head along came a reference to some sort of automobile and destroyed the illusion for me. Every time they talked about Doc’s Ford I started to think of Bonnie and Clyde instead of The Man with no Name. Car’s in my mind speak to a different time period, one just after the “wild” west but maybe I’m just being naïve of American history.
Also there was a little bit too much education in these outlaws. I don’t mean to imply that in my mind the true western is filled with a bunch of blithering idiots. I’m not against them reading or writing or even composing the occasional poem but being, “completely educated at the Newata (OK) School of Industrial Arts,” was a bit much for me. It seems to me that the more education a man gets the less likely he is to stray toward a life of robbin’ and thievin’.
I have to admit I found it difficult to extract Chandler’s individual rhetoric or thesis from the sea of paraphrasing, citations, and devils advocate arguments. Please forgive me, I didn’t get my nap today but I didn’t see a clear personal opinion on the part of Daniel Chandler but rather a barrage of quoted opinions from other authors. That being said I shall do my best to complete the assignment.
I believe his argument was summed up in the last paragraph, the last paragraph typically being the conclusion, yet I do not feel comfortable quoting it since it is clearly cited from (Derrida 1981, 61). This was however something I agreed with. It is impossible to consider all of story telling without instinctively wanting to group them together somehow, seeing commonality somewhere along the line. In the case of The Purpose of This Creature Man it is perfectly reasonable to consider the elements of story that the reader finds conflicting to the typical western as the authors attempt to make the story original. On the other hand there are other elements in the story that burn so brightly, the story on a whole cannot help but be classified as a western.
I believe this has a much broader application. Although there are stories that have yet to be written and original ideas we haven’t seen yet, at some point any story will lend itself to classification of some sort.
Adam
In reading this story, there are many ways in which the reader would be able to distinguish it as a western. For example, words like “desperadoes”, and phrases like “Trotting Behind on horseback” paint a picture of the old west in the readers mind. Other elements like the characters nick names, represented names I would associate with bandits or cowboys of the west. Even the lawmen carried names like “Sweet Water Charlie Bascom”. Even in the very beginning of the story the mention of a Winchester scattergun and a holster. If that doesn’t scream Wild Wild West I don’t know what does.
Besides for all these facts on the obvious reasons why the reader of this story would think it is a western, there are an equivalent amounts off odd material as well. By odd material I mean parts of the story that don’t add up to what the typical western would look like. First off, there is talk of a motor car often in the story. Other parts of the story seemed to be out of place. For instance, there is a part in the story where the narrator gets his nick name from the leader of the bandits. The leader proceeds to say “Duke’s got elegance…boldness. Its dashing.” When I read this I thought to myself, Wouldn’t a burglar of the Wild West want a name that strikes fear into all that oppose him, a name that makes people quiver in fear. One other part of the story mentions that one of the robbers has read Freud before. I don’t know about you but I think it’s odd to have a bank robber of the Wild West reciting things he has learned from studying Freud.
In reading Chandlers “The Problem of Definition” you decipher that the main content is about genre and how to classify stories or movies. At the end of his argument Chandler, in my opinion, says that the purpose for every work that will have a label of a genre attached to it is labeled by its purpose. As for the story “The purpose of this creature man” I thought that it mainly brought incite to the reader about the lives of bank robbers of the Wild West. It portrayed humanity in the lives of murderers and showed that sometimes they are not that bad at all. Comparing Chandlers ideas to the story you realize that a story is labeled with a genre for many different reasons some economic some just because the main aura sometimes fits the story or form of media. So sometimes that means that if it sounds like a western sometimes it is, although it can be labeled a western for many reasons.
At the time that I wrote this there was only one comment by Adam, so I am forced to comment on his work. I agree with his work when he says that the story screams western right down t what the characters wear. I agree with the points he made about finding to strange of the level of education that the characters had. And lastly the point Adam makes at the end of his comments, I find to be spot on. He says “at some point any story will lend itself to classification of some sort”.
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