True West by Sam Shepard

Both “The Right of Love” by Gene Lees and “The Canonization” by John Donne represent a form of forbidden love due to ethnicity and religion where both parties are fighting for the acceptance of their relationship. Donne, although catholic, falls in love with a non-catholic woman which is looked down upon by others. In his poem he states, “we in us find th’ eagle and the dove”,the two birds represent two polar opposite symbols, the eagle represent strength and courage, while a dove represents love and peace. Although a relationship between catholics and non-catholics were forbidden, they found a common ground in their love for each other. Differences can strengthen the love between two individuals, which is also shown in “The Right of Love”,

Many American’s dreamt of opportunity, salvation, and riches by expanding out to the American West. The region we refer to as the “American West” enveloped into the idea of freedom and became a catalyst for the minds of many Americans and immigrants throughout history to venture west. However, Historian John Mack Faragher observes that we often imagine the West as a place where Americans could become fully independent or “self-reliant individuals.” But, by the late nineteenth century, Westerners discovered that they were not self-sufficient and highly dependent on the federal government. The West found itself highly dependent on assistance from the federal government in the regulation of race relations, the management of natural resources,

In 1996, I was born into a chaotic world that my infant self had no indication as to what he was going to experience.As I now look back, it amazes me what has happened in just 19 years and is still hard to believe how I ended up where I am today. This is the crude and bizarre ride through I, Wyatt Bishop’s, 19 years in this extraordinary bubble we call Earth.

1. Utah is both a product of the times in which it emerged but also a unique entity that worked to shape its own future. Robbins and Malone both describe how the west, and by a large extent Utah is a part of the great narrative of the American West and sometimes differing from it entirely. By exploring the different facets and predominant activities of 1850's and beyond we can find clues as to the origins and ultimate fate of the region . By exploring Western American capitalism, various functions of manifest destiny, and how settlers adhered to the frontier pioneer spirit we can learn the overall narrative in which the region participates.

There are an infinite amount of unique responses to the question “What is the meaning of life?”. However, the majority of people will agree that the true meaning of life is to find happiness and what is really important to one’s self. In Jon Krakauer’s, Into The Wild, Chris McCandless conveys this idealism through his life’s journey as he bravely defies all limitations. Chris McCandless isolates himself from society in his Alaskan Odyssey as a way to defy accepted expectations and to begin discovering the meanings of life without any corrupted influences.

The Midwest remains a melting pot of Protestantism and Calvinism, mistrustful of authority and power. While in the west there culture was like a region of cowboys, Indians, covered wagons, outlaws, prospectors, and a whole society operating just outside the law. as with other sections of the United States, regional boundaries are somewhat imprecise. The West of the cowboy and the cattle drive covered many non-Western states, including Kansas and Nebraska. Much of the West’s fiercest Indian fighting took place in the Dakotas, both of which are now considered to be part of the Middle West. Alaska and Hawaii, geographically the most western of all the states, are really no part of the popularly conceived West at all.

Timothy Cole was a 24-year-old student at Texas Tech University. After completing two years of college, he had enlisted in the army for two years in hopes of serving his country. Timothy was an ordinary man with dreams of getting married and having children, but that dream never materialized. Upon his return to Texas Tech in 1985, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the rape of a 20-year-old girl named Michele Mallin. Mallin, then, a student at Texas Tech University Lubbock, was walking to her car when a man approached her and held a knife to her neck. He forced himself into her car and drove her to the outskirts of town where he raped her repeatedly. The next day the police investigator showed Michele pictures of the suspect where she pointed at Timothy Cole. When police showed her a lineup, again she picked Cole. “I was positive,” she said. “I really thought it was him,” but in fact she had accidently robbed an innocent man of his freedom (Lavendra 2009).

Our Town by Thornton Wilder focuses on the lives of the residents of small town Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in the early 1900s, more specifically, the lives of young George Gibbs and Emily Webb. Throughout Act I, Thornton describes the daily lives of the people of Grover’s Corners. The milkman delivers the day’s milk, the paperboy brings the morning paper, mothers prepare breakfast, and children get ready for school. The day winds down, everyone has had their supper, homework is finished, and adults arrive home from choir practice. Life in Grover’s Corners is traditional, ordinary, and unremarkable, not much goes on out of the ordinary. Act II focuses on love and marriage in the town. The narrator says “Almost everybody in the world gets married, - you know what I mean? In our town there aren’t hardly any exceptions. Most everybody in the world climbs into their graves married.” and Mrs. Gibbs articulates that “People are meant to go through life two by two. Tain’t natural to be lonesome.”(54) George and Emily get married, much like the other young couples of Grover’s Corners, and proceed to live blithely and contentedly on George’s uncle’s farm. Act III looks into the last act in a person’s life, death. Emily passes away during childbirth, and at the cemetery, she meets the spirits of her mother-in-law and many other deceased townspeople.

William Cronon another new historian talked about western history and how western history lead us to today’s environmental history. He also brought up that frontier is an environment and means a free land, its a place, culture. If the West be limited to process it is impossible to talk about western history and as Cronon mentioned,” If the frontier represented only one kind of plenty, then it ought to be possible to rewrite history which in one rather Turnerian sense is actually the environmental history of North America in term of transition not from free to occupied land”( Cronon, p. 11). Donal Worster another new westerner describes the West more than just a process. The West “ begins with Dajotas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas” ( Worster , p.13). So the West it can only be defined as the West when only be along with South and North. The West is a geographical location and its a region. Its not just only a process. New historians agree on that the West is the place rather than process. Place means location which bring culture, assimilation, knowledge and civilization. The old West was a place like other regions that had rich, poor, powerful, slave, educated and uneducated

1. Rooster Cogburn is also a man with true grit. Throughout this book True grit, Mattie Ross was told that Rooster was one the goodies marshals for the job to go after Tom Chaney. He was known as the meanest and show no merciless in his job and fear is not something in his thinking. He well loves shot if he has to that something that he loves to do. He brings his men’s alive and also believes that even the worst should have a say in court.(pg. 25) That is the self-esteem he has to motivated him to achieve his duty in getting keeping bad guys away. Rooster was a man that believe that seeking justices, which is doing the right thing was always Rooster motive. Also, Rooster has this attention or regard well doing his job is also make Rooster a stronger

If you were fourteen and your father was murdered in cold blood, would you want revenge? In the novel “True Grit” by Charles Portis there are characters who have grit but there are also characters who lack grit this novel takes place in the 1870’s post-civil war in Arkansas. According to Shmoop, Wikipedia, and Google True Grit is having passion, courage, and determination. Mattie Ross is a fourteen year old girl who will not listen to anyone and still goes on a long journey into Indian territory and is determined to avenge her father’s death. Throughout the book Mattie shows she has true grit. Tom Chaney on the other hand is the man who killed her father in cold blood and shows he lacks grit throughout the book. Rooster Cogbern is a U.S marshal

Brian Levack, Edward Muir, Micheal Maas, Meredith Veldman. The West: Encounters and Transformations, Consise Edition. Pearson: Upper Saddle River, 2009. Print

Wide open spaces, uninhabited for miles; breathtaking scenery, unchanged for centuries. Explorers charting this great unknown; exploring this frontier known simply as the West. This common narrative of the West can be seen in movies, television, and artwork from around the globe. However, many parts of this narrative can be far from reality. West’s A Narrative History of the West, Miller’s Agents of Empire, The Lewis and Clark expedition, and Aron’s The Afterlives of Lewis and Clark all provide a counter-narrative to the traditional narrative of the “untouched” West and highlight the importance media has on the public’s interpretation of the West.

My Side of the Mountain begins with a diary entry by Sam Gribley, which he writes while he is holed up inside a tree in the Catskill Mountains during a blizzard. He claims that he is snug and safe. When the entry ends, a slightly older Sam explains that before that blizzard arrived he worked for months building his house in the tree, learning to make fires, collecting stores of food, and so on. When winter arrived he had plenty of supplies, but he was still scared. Luckily he stayed safe and warm through the storm. When it was over, he knew he had made the right choice when he ran away from his crowded New York apartment to live in the woods.

Nighthawks, was painted in 1942 by Edward Hopper (1882-1967) an artist who was known as “a great master in the ranks of America realists.” (Levin, Gail) Hoppers paintings were first hung in “retrospective in 1933, Hopper played host just three years later to the first major show of surrealist art in New york.” (Levin, Gail) Hopper grew up in Washington Square, and lived there for most of his life. “ Hopper excelled in creating realistic pictures of clear-cut, sunlit streets and houses, often without figures.” (Levin, Gail) “He offers a brand of realism not bound to reality, and the places he depicts are familiar and foreign, comfortable and disquieting,” said the USA Times. The painting resides in the Art institute of Chicago. Nighthawks just like many of Hoppers paintings give a feeling of loneliness, and isolation as well as a feeling of darkness due to the dark hues. The picture leaves the viewer with thousands of words and interpretations with a third person view of an isolated man as he sits in a small parlor and ponders. The painting was created in 1942, which took place during the time of the great depression.