Neva McConnaughey McConnaughey1

ENGL 384

Dr. Tara Penry

March 18, 2011

Movement westward began long before he 1900s, but sources of all different

mediums indicate that the start of the 20th century was when the Western hit its virtual peak as

a genre. The Cowboy was suddenly an icon, a national figure. He was fictionally transformed

from a dusty, cow-prodding tough guy into the intelligent, romantic hero many people

associate with today. Close examination of literature from this time will show a popular

novel, The Virginian, to be on of the most influential pieces in accomplishing this

transformation. The text, written by Owen Wister, has thus been called by common consent,

the first true western novel.( Lejeune)

Its a bit surprising, and difficult to comprehend, how just one book could be picked

from the multitudes to represent an entire piece of culture; this comes especially hard to

believe upon the understanding that this true western novel has nothing to do with any of

the famous westerners from history. Was it divine providence that let the author to write the

book that would bring him a matchless reputation? Whatever the significance of The

Virginian, it carved a new trail for frontier writing. A brief examination of fictional work that

preceded Wisters will elucidate the meaning of The Virginian in literature of Western

America.
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Literary themes took a turn away from eastern ideals in the 1800s and 1900s,

beginning with the observation of western pioneers. Readers and authors alike took instantly

to the fearless men who lived off the land and sang to their livestock. Cowpunchers, or

cowpokes as they were called, were named for their occupation of herding cattle along with a

cattle prod. The term cowboy came later from the Spanish word vaquero, for the original

cattlemen of Mexico. As cowboys became more prominent in the American West, the name

found its place in the hearts and homes of easterners.

Whether the term was cowpuncher or cowboy, the prevailing image that follows is that

of a tall hero mounted impressively on his horse, riding the open plains to fight for justice and

the general welfare. But how much of the cowboy persona is authentic? The real picture was

surely somewhat blurred by the writings of easterners that traveled west, known as dudes,

that wrote based on their own experiences.(Bratcher) Naturally, in the interest of readership,

many of these accounts were sensationalized and embellished. The idea of a cowboy

equestrian spread far and wide, and finally became categorized as the American myth.

Owen Wister, as author of The Virginian, is primarily responsible for this myth . His money-

making characterization of the west and its inhabitants earned him a title as the father of the

western, and nearly paved the way for an empire of entertainment.

It is not easy to accept that the bulk of Wisters impact with The Virginian is in his

portrayal of a cowboy. Nevertheless, it seems widely understood that Wisters cowboy

challenged the image of every cowboy prior to him. Before its publication in 1902, dime
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novels were the big hit in Western prose. James Fenimore Cooper was a popular novelist of

the time, whose writings about man facing untamed nature quickly inspired the manufacture

of small booklets that were called dime novels because they cost either a nickel or a dime.

(Warren) These condensed publications were famous for their larger-than-life, generally

fabricated documentation of the lives of pioneers and outlaws, such as Davy Crockett, Buffalo

Bill, and Jessie James. Before Wister, the world saw the cowboy as hardly more than a

mounted ruffian.(Bratcher)

Owen Wister, a man who started out studying music and wound up as a lawyer, based

his writing on personal, close surveillance of Westerners. The Virginian, in fact, was not his

first western-themed book; his first published western was Hanks Woman in 1892, and he

developed a book of stories in 1896 entitled Red Men and White. Two novels later, he created

the ultra-masculine archetype known simply as the Virginian. As described from an

easterners perspective, the Virginian is known to be tall with grey/green eyes, and possessing

an unassailable physical and intellectual prowess. James Bratcher, a writer for Journal of the

West, says this about our Virginian hero: Here was a captain of industry of sorts, who

could manage a crew, even the hard cases (see Chapter 16), and yet was respectful to women,

kind to horses, and knowledgeable about Shakespeare.(Bratcher)

The Virginian is the irresistible, human model of the territory. His image is a reflection

of the West itself an alluring combination of good and bad, of East and West. Bratcher
speaks of Wister as being, highly conscious of European roots beneath the cowboys

unexpected shining when heroic behavior was called for.(Bratcher) Although he

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is the ultimate cowpuncher, the Virginians character is a blend of eastern and western values.

Whats more, he was vastly contrary to the hotshot gunslingers of the earlier dime novels.

This is what makes his portrayal by the novel so broadly received and therefore important to

literary history.

Easterners loved reading about the west as much as frontiersmen loved being there.

They ate it up. Bratcher even offers attention to the fairly eastern principles of the novel and

correlates it to the circulation of the book. As a result of Wisters novel and its wide

readership, the cowboys image was enhanced beyond that of an unkempt ruffian on

horseback. Wisters Anglo-Saxon values resonated with Eastern readers, WASPish at the turn

of the century.(Bratcher) The foremost distinguishing feature of The Virginian, which

contributed to its success in both eastern and western crowds, is the manner in which it unites

the ideals of both regions. In his book about the transition of Western fiction into film, Jim

Hitt emphasizes the pinnacle of western ideals. First, the Virginian is a romantic primitive

who rejects the traditional values of civilization in favor of a free life in the West. (Hitt)

To parallel the east/west comparison, Wister also accomplishes a similar juxtaposition

of good and evil. All this is accomplished using conflict. The Virginian represents the west,

and his girl, Molly, stands up for eastern morals. Their values will always be conflicting. At

the same time, the Virginian is himself conflicted, making decisions that exemplify the
coarseness of western life, even participating in the death of a friend. Noted literary scholar

William Bloodworth is quoted by Holly George-Warren as saying, "Westerns have functioned

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as morality plays of good in conflict with evil, with the results portrayed in such a way as to

idealize the past in contrast to the present.

It seems safe to say that Wister finds ideal middle ground with his writing, so to

immortalize the western hero in an admirable light, from either side of the Prime Meridian.

Still, certain unwritten cowboy codes were observed. Warren reminds us that while

smoothing over this apparent partition between directional regions, he also breaks new ground

on the Western literature front. So impactful was his work, it drastically altered the cowboy

role in coming publications. Hitt calls him the founder of the formula western, suggesting the

importance of his novel, not so much for its statements, but for its structural importance in the

coming years. The characterization and conflict of The Virginian became the blueprint for the

thousands of westerns it prefaced.

As the cinema industry progressed, filmmakers jumped at any chance to throw a

recognized Cowboy on the screen. The Virginian was adopted to film 4 different times, and

finally became a rather successful, 90 minute TV series in the 1960s, second only to Bonanza

and Gunsmoke. Before the screen adaptations, Wister adjusted his novel for stage

productions, in which Dustin Fadnum starred as the Virginian. Because hed studied music at

Harvard before going into law he was able to compose both lyrics and music to a song

which would accompany the stage version, entitled Ten Thousand Cattle Straying. The song
itself is a testament to his profession, and to his skill for writing Cowboy Poetry as well as

novels. In spite of his assorted talents, none of his later work was quite so influential as The

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Virginian. Other authors followed his lead, however, attempting to expand the reaches of the

infamous Cowboy.

In some cases, these attempts were just attempts, and nothing more. W.C. Tuttle is

said to have written for almost 50 years without putting out an important western. Charles

Seltzer and H.H. Knibbs also followed Wister, but their work and the films adapted from

them have, for the most part, fallen into obscurity. All these writers share one thing in

common they were second rate writers who seldom rose above the clich,and the film

adaptations reflect their positions in the literary hierarchy.(Hitt)

In the film sphere, the representation of the cowboy changed over decades, evolving

with the progression of cinematography. The cowboy changed from a silent, thieving

gunslinger to a serenading pretty boy. Gene Autry became an idol in the 1930s, a singing

sensation that could wield a gun and save the day. After his voice saved the people of the

depression from their sorrow, he moved on to do major movies; musical westerns. Eventually

Westerns swarmed the screens, both in film and TV series. Each time, the protagonist was

modeled after the ideal man, the Virginian. Even with minstrel tendencies, the Cowboy was

an icon. He always had a strong set of values, a great vocabulary, and a gentle nature. A great

role model for young boys.

 But even the youth are susceptible to myths drawn out over a century, and that isnt a

bad thing, in this case, at all. The Virginian, with his middling of right and wrong values, his

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amalgamation of eastern and western inclinations, is a strong symbol for a country to cling to.

Firm but neutral. Ready to use violence when necessary, but not looking for a fight.

Stanley Corkin, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati wrote about his

experience using The Virginian in the classroom: [my students] found in Wisters romance a

plausible and emotionally engaging explanation of what makes America great and what

makes it America. The Virginian had such an enormous impact because it set such a good

example. Westerns as a genre, and The Virginian in particular, dramatically portray the

moment just before the incorporation of the frontier into the material, administrative, and,

ultimately, ideological systems of the United States.(Corkin) That standard had the greatest

power in shaping the western genre, but for the country it was message to stand strong, and to

never stray from his western code, no matter the cost.(Warren) Its an encouraging thing to

think that, even 60 years after it was written, every little boy wanted to be that Cowboy that

was fashioned after the great Virginian. That Cowboy that is considered the myth of the

nation.

These mythmakers took the mundane reality of the cowboy and built it into a more

exciting and noble lifestyle, while the exploits of notorious gunslingers became exaggerated

in books, magazines, and in the next century moving pictures. (Warren)

 The Virginian created a new kind of champion as well as a new kind of cowboy. He

was the proverbial knight in shining armor, but he did it all in overalls. Every woman wanted

the man with the boldness to tell her youre going to love me anyway, and every man

wanted the bravery it takes to enter a gunfight knowing without a doubt you will leave it

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unscathed. Wisters novel was predestined for fame in his introduction alone, where he wrote

about the cowpuncher with a sense of awe that inspired readers to feel the same, For he was

romantic. Whatever he did, he did with his mighthe will be here among us always,

invisible, waiting his chance to live and play as he would like.(Wister)

 Works Cited

Bratcher, James T (04/01/2004). "Shakespeare and the cowboy: Prince Hal as the model for

Owen Wister's Virginian". Journal of the West (0022-5169), 43 (2), p. 72

Corkin, Stanley. Cowboys and Free Markets: PostWorld War II

Westerns and U.S. Hegemony. Cinema Journal, 39, Number 3, Spring 2000, pp. 66

91.ProjectMUSE.

Cowboy Poetry.com. Owen Wisters Virginian.

<http://www.cowboypoetry.com/wister.htm> March 11, 2011

Hitt, Jim. The American West from Fiction (1823-1976) into Film (1909-1986). Jefferson,

N.C: McFarland, 1990.

George-Warren, Holly. How Hollywood Invented the Wild West: Featuring the Real West,

Campfire Melodies, Matinee Idols, Four Legged Friends, Cowgirls & Lone Guns.

Pleasantville, N.Y: Reader's Digest, 2002.

Lejeune, Anthony, and Hertha L. Lund. "The rise and fall of the western: the true

western, whether book or movie, was more than entertainment; it was an

encapsulation of the American myth." National Review 31 Dec. 1989:

23+.Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Mar. 2011.