The West

1
The West
12

• Literature Craft Voice
• Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse

2
The West

• Consider how the following facts have shaped the
  creative works that have emerged from the West
• The West is the largest region of the United
  States and most geographically diverse. There
  are vast open spaces, deserts, grazing lands,
  lush farming valleys, and mountains.
• The West is the last region of the continental
  United States to be settled.
• Historically, the West was formed from the
  Louisiana Purchase of 1803, land ceded by Great
  Britain in 1818, land acquired when the Republic
  of Texas joined the U.S., additional land ceded
  by Britain in 1846 and Mexico in 1848, and land
  included in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.
• In some western states, cities compete with farms
  and ranches as centers of commercial and cultural
  experience.
• Americans have long seen the West, particularly
  California, as a kind of promised land, where
  they could recreate their lives.

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Old West vs. New West

• The American frontier moved gradually westward
  after the first white immigrants settled on the
  Eastern seaboard in the 1600s.
• The "West" was defined as that area just beyond
  established boundaries.
• It has long been romanticized as a place of
  freedom and individuality, out of the reach of
  restrictions, a place where the individual could
  realize and test himself. Ingrained in the
  American consciousness is the image of the cowboy
  and the settler with their wagon trains pushing
  forward.
• Consider the final lines of Huck Finn in Mark
  Twains masterpiece But I reckon I got to light
  out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because
  Aunt Sally shes going to adopt me and sivilize
  (sic) me and I cant stand it. I been there
  before.
• The image of the West has grown more ambiguous in
  recent years. Literature and film are less
  certain of the good, morally upright settler
  taming the landscape and more aware of a growing
  societys willingness to exploit natural
  resources and less empowered peoples.
• A sense of loss and disconnect shapes much of the
  writing that has emerged from not just Native
  American writers but others as well.

4
Today, the West is diverse, and not just
geographically. Consider William Kittredges
statement

• Somebody says, How are things in Montana? And
  Im tempted to say, Which Montana are you asking
  about? I can name about 30 for you. Theres
  one made up of retired college professors in
  Missoula, theres another one made up of Chicano
  sugarbeet growers outside of Billings. Theres
  another one made out of Hudderites out on the
  plains. Theres another one made up of people
  on the Black Feet Reservation. It just goes on
  and on and on and on. Each one of those peoples
  has an emotional, territorial, and sometimes
  religious region.

5
Escaping to the West

• America was founded by people on the move. Part
  of our culture and mythology is this continued
  movement, relocation, and resettlement. Is it
  always, however, a quest to find oneself or to
  escape oneself?
• Stay home, take care of things at home. I
  really believe that one of the things in our
  culture is we cant keep going somewhere else
  running from troubles. By staying home I mean
  dealing with your emotional problems on the spot
  where they are - William Kittredge.

6
Compare Kittredges statement to Ralph Waldo
Emersons from Self-Reliance (1841)

• Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first
  journeys discover to us the indifference of
  places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome,
  I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my
  sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends,
  embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples,
  and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad
  self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
  I affect to be intoxicated with sights and
  suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant
  goes with me wherever I go.

7
Thirty-Four Seasons of Winter

• In this story, William Kittredge said that he
  was writing about people and places and
  situations that I cared about deeply, that were
  to some degree very close to me.
• Landscape
• Note the descriptions of the landscapes and the
  characters homes and their similarity to their
  lives, which seem as empty and bleak as their
  surroundings only Ben, at the end, makes an
  effort to change. Consider the following
• Summers all ran together, each like the last,
  heat and baled hay and dust.
• The house was surrounded by a fenced dirt yard
  where turkeys picked, shaded by three withering
  peach trees.
• It was dead hot in the valley fields and dust
  rose in long spirals. In the winter it snowed
  frequently as houses hung with ice, windows
  sealed against wind by tacked-on plastic
  sheeting.
• Even the bedroom that the young Ben and Art
  shared was Spartan and hardly stimulating
  furnished with two steel-frame cots and a row of
  nails where they hung what extra clothing they
  owned. Similarly, Ben and Maries bedroom is a
  dim room gray and cold.
• At Christmas, the town was deserted, looking
  like a carnival at four in the morning, lighted
  and ready to tear down and move.

8
Thirty-Four Seasons of Winter continued

• Tone
• The tone often flat, unemotional, and dreary
  reflects the landscape and the lives of the
  characters. The tone is especially noticeable in
  sentences that report the deaths of Bens father
  and Claras father.
• Characters
• In some ways, the characters lives have become
  dictated by the seasons and the routine of their
  chores, which they seem not to be able to get
  beyond. We read, for instance, that Ben fed the
  cattle at daybreak, a mandatory job that had to
  be done everyday of winter, and that he measures
  his life by winters.
• Their lives pass drearily as they respond to
  events rather than create events. The lives of
  the characters tend to be loveless, empty, filled
  with alcohol, and the occasional tragedy often
  fueled by alcohol. They do not enjoy or strive
  for those features that contribute to full lives
  there is little love or commitment in their
  marriages and families none seems spiritual or
  religious in anyway none has a truly close
  friendship, and none displays a deep interest in
  work, art, or hobbies. They are resigned to
  lives of emptiness and despair and live largely
  without reflection, perhaps not even imagining a
  better life possible.

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Thirty-Four Seasons of Winter continued

• Ben Alton
• Kittredge admires Ben who rises above the
  landscape and the others to change. Ben Alton
  finally back in bed with his wife who is pregnant
  and going to make the best of it. Hes going to
  deal with it there. Hes not going to be running
  around all over the place beating up on people.
  Hes going to be dealing with it like an adult
  instead of like a schoolyard bully as we often
  are.
• Ben is the protagonist and the only dynamic
  character in the story. He begins to change on
  the day of Arts funeral after he drinks and
  dances with Clara and visits the girl imprisoned
  for killing Art. He feels, he says, like
  nothing. The killer tells him something that
  works a change within him The thing I liked
  about Art was that he was old enough. He was
  like you. He was old enough to do anything. He
  could have been nice if hed wanted.
• Ben contemplates this as he drives home slowly,
  sits on the edge of the bed, and smokes a
  cigarette in the kitchen. He returns to the
  bedroom and shows Marie and their yet-to-be born
  infant real tenderness and thinks fondly of the
  day he met his wife. A change has come over him.
  He demonstrates compassion and tenderness for a
  woman he hit and insulted a few days before. He
  realizes, as Stephanie told him, that he is old
  enough to be nice. That is, he has the power
  to change his life and how he treats others.
• Title
• The title reinforces Bens change. For
  thirty-four years his life has been essentially
  wintry, loveless, and unfulfilled. Now by
  reaching out to Marie, he demonstrates a change
  as he will be more accepting and giving of love.
  His future will not be so cold.

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Romeros Shirt

• Dagoberto Gilb reflects the expanding borders of
  American literature A lot of times the world of
  books doesnt reflect your own neighborhood. in
  the Rio Grande Valley or in El Paso, Texas Id
  say seventy-five percent of the population is
  Mexican-American. They sit there and read about
  mutton and tea pots, and go, ugh, and think, I
  dont know what Im going to do in college.
  Theres never gorditas, theres no enchiladas,
  theres nothing about the neighborhood.
• Romero
• Romero is a hardworking immigrant, who has
  supported his family through a series of jobs.
  However, in the process of working and providing
  for his family, Romero is aware that he has not
  been as financially successful as other
  immigrants in El Paso and other cities. The
  result is that he has so often dwelled on the
  difficulties of life, that he had become hard,
  guarding against compassion and generosity. So
  much so that hed even become spare with his
  words, even with his family. Romero has lost
  himself in the consumerist culture of America,
  forgetting that which is truly valuable. He has
  yielded his humanity. He has turned into his
  work, become an activity or one of the objects he
  prizes, and he has lost strong emotional
  impulses. While he never completely loses his
  love for his wife and children, he does lose his
  ability to express that love and to be
  emotionally engaged with them. He is more a part
  of the landscape to his family than a husband and
  father.
• Through his contact with the old man and the
  loss of a shirt, Romero regains his humanity but
  only after a long and anguishing contemplation
  that leads to an epiphany and a much deeper
  realization about his love for his family and his
  need to express that love. At the end of the
  story, he lay peacefully beside his wife, a
  changed man.

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Romeros Shirt continued

• Landscape and Symbols
• Reread the first paragraph carefully. Note how
  his home and the landscape around it reflect the
  inner life of Romero. The home is made of stone
  painted white with cacti in the garden and
  weeds that grow tall with yellow flowers which
  seed into thorn-hard burrs. Consider other
  images of barrenness and hardness in the first
  paragraph. However, resurrection and rebirth are
  possible. There is hope in the plant life,
  especially the juniper, an evergreen in need of
  care.
• Consider the following sentence from the story
  Life in El Paso was much like the land hard,
  but one could make do with what was offered.
• Tone
• The story is sympathetic and respectful of
  Romero, who lost what is significant in life
  largely because of his milieu.

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Consider Dagoberto Gilbs statement on work and
the literary world

• so many people, and so many writers, have
  left behind or never learned respect for manual
  work, for people who carry and use tools for a
  living and get calluses and chapped hands and
  dirt under their nails, who bend and stoop,
  people who work by the hour or the basket, who
  build and fix things, who dig and plant and pick.
  The literary world is a powerful suit-and-tie
  business, and the well-dressed stories that
  editors look for are too much by writers whose
  game is played as professionally as a Harvard
  M.B.A.s, whose marketing goals are not meant to
  cause readers to step outside the privileged
  cubicle to see whos sweeping the floor in the
  hours after theyve gone home.

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The Chrysanthemums

• In The Chrysanthemums John Steinbeck presents a
  character who has not realized her dreams or
  herself in the West.
• Elisa
• Elisa has a romantic temperament that is stifled
  by the male-dominated culture in which she lives.
  The winters fog in the storys first sentence is
  an image of enclosure directly applicable to
  Elisa. Marriage has suffocated her romantic
  temperament, her possibilities, and her dreams.
  We see her emotional frustration, sexual
  frustration, monetary frustration, her
  frustration with her lifestyle and with her
  husband, and frustration with the limited range
  of possibilities open to her. Steinbecks
  sympathetic portrait justifies her frustration
  and in no way does he present her as a whiner
  as he does the whining repairman.
• As a romantic, Elisa loves beauty for its own
  sake not only the beauty of the chrysanthemums,
  but also of words. She speaks poetically at
  times, and when the gypsy repairman describes the
  flowers with a simile, she responds with
  enthusiasm, which later turns into passion.
  However , the story does not end happily for
  Elisa as she seems doomed to her situation.

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Chrysanthemums continued

• Henry Allen
• Henry Allen, as his plain name suggests, might
  represent the typical male. He loves his wife
  but he is unwittingly insensitive, unimaginative,
  and uncommunicative. He is very practical, as
  suggested by his comment to his wife about
  growing apples as large as her chrysanthemums.
  He is a decent man and, to most people, a very
  good husband. However, his pragmatism and his
  failure to examine his marriage or fully
  understand his wife have made him insensitive to
  his Elisas emotional needs.
• The Traveling Repairman.
• The repairman opens and closes possibilities for
  Elisa. At first, she tries to get rid of him and
  send him on his way, but then he comments on the
  chrysanthemums. He then seems to appreciate her
  and to share her romantic temperament note how
  he describes the flowers (a quick puff of
  colored smoke). Unlike her husband, he does not
  seem to be overly practical, as he listens
  intently to her directions about caring for the
  chrysanthemums. Elisa is attracted to him and
  contemplates his lifestyle. Her attraction turns
  to passion when he seems to understand her
  description of planting hands. However, as she
  drives into town and sees her chrysanthemums
  tossed to the side of the road, she realizes that
  she was duped.

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Chrysanthemums continued

• Chrysanthemums as Symbol
• The chrysanthemums symbolize Elisas dream and
  romantic nature. The flowers are large,
  blossoming, and full of life, like Elisas
  internal life. Yet they are enclosed in a wire
  fence for protection, just as Elisa is
  protected in her marriage. She is an energetic
  woman with nowhere to spend her energies accept
  in her small garden, which cannot contain her
  dreams and aspirations.
• To the repairman, the chrysanthemums were only a
  ploy to engage Elisa in conversation and to earn
  some money. He disposes the flowers when they
  are no longer useful to him. For Elisa, the
  discarded flowers reveal her gullibility and the
  lack of respect the patriarchal culture has for
  her, her dreams, her thoughts, and her feelings.
  As a result, she feels embittered and defeated.
  Gone is the energy we saw earlier in the story
  when she was over-eager, over-powerful in her
  pruning of the flower stalks. She ends the story
  crying weakly like an old woman.

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The Man to Send Clouds

• In The Man to Send Clouds, Leslie Marmon Silko
  raises many questions about cultural clashes and
  assimilation. Consider the following
• Are Christianity and traditional tribal
  spirituality in conflict?
• Does the combination of Christianity and tribal
  spirituality offer the characters a deeper
  spiritual experience and deeper emotional
  understanding of life and death?
• Is any conflict reconciled peacefully at the
  storys conclusion?
• What is the implication of the twin bells from
  the king of Spain?
• Consider how the following statement operates in
  the story
• Silkos fiction represents a powerful
  convergence of history and culture. Throughout
  her work, Silko presents American culture in all
  its nightmare, yet she does not eradicate the
  possibility of miracle and healing Gregory
  Salyer in Leslie Marmon Silko.

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The Man to Send Clouds continued

• Attitudes and responses toward death
• How do the characters react to the death of
  Teofilo? Note how Leon and Ken handle Teofilos
  body, and how Leon tells Louise and Teresa of the
  grandfathers death. Consider the womens
  reaction. Do these responses suggest a healthy
  attitude toward death? Do the title of the story
  and the preparations of Teofilos body suggest
  something about beliefs concerning the afterlife?
• Priest
• The priest is frustrated as he tries to bring
  Christianity to the tribe. Consider how he
  communicates with Leon. He genuinely seems to
  care for the people. He is faced with a dilemma
  of whether or not to use holy water in a
  non-Catholic ceremony. What does his willingness
  to sprinkle holy water on the gravesite say about
  him and the possibility of reconciling or
  combining Christian and Indian rites and
  traditions?

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Talking to the Dead

• Sylvia Watanabe writes about the Hawaiian Islands
  and the replacement of traditional customs by
  contemporary customs and conveniences.
• Talking to the Dead raises many questions about
  a culture in transition
• - Why do indigenous peoples tend to yield to
  modern trends and developments?
• - Are these changes more or less culturally
  nourishing?
• - Do these changes lead to more fulfilling lives?
• - Have people lost the closeness to the land that
  they once had?
• Does Watanabe seem to have a position on these
  issues?
• Is the story a satire? Is Watanabe satirizing
  much of the emptiness, frivolity, and lack of
  authenticity in the contemporary world and its
  rituals?

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Talking to the Dead continued

• Aunty Talking to the Dead
• She sang the naming chants and the healing
  chants. She sang the stones, and trees, and
  stars back into their rightful places. Louder
  and louder the song, making whole what had been
  broken. This description defines Auntys
  mysticism and, to an extent, the traditional role
  of a shaman.
• Aunty seems almost oblivious to the outside
  world and its supposed logic and technological
  progress. She is confident in her probably
  centuries old practices and does not respond to
  her increasing marginalization with bitterness.
  She seems self-contained, in possession of a
  deeper, more mystical, more spiritual, and more
  life-sustaining knowledge. Consider that she was
  referred to as The Undead and seemed to be at
  least a hundred.
• Despite her greatly diminished role in the
  community and the insults she receives, Aunty
  remains intractable and committed to tribal
  tradition. Why do others consult her especially
  at unexpected or tragic deaths? Do people tend
  to find more solace at those times in the
  traditional ways?

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Talking to the Dead continued

• The narrator Yuri Shimabukuro
• Talking to the Dead is about the narrators
  journey to become a shaman. The shaman was an
  important figure in primitive cultures,
  performing many functions including healing,
  leading sacrificial rituals, preserving tradition
  through storytelling and song, clairvoyancy,
  guiding souls, and various spiritual rituals. As
  in Yuris case, becoming a shaman can require a
  calling followed by a lengthy apprenticeship.
• The journey to shamanism is long and difficult
  for Yuri. Her moment comes at Auntys wake
  when she feels that Aunty is talking to me.
  Yuri then manages to remove Auntys corpse from
  the funeral home and give her a traditional
  burial. By the end of the story, Yuri is now the
  shaman for her community how often shell be
  consulted, of course, is questionable.

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Talking to the Dead continued

• The Paradise Mortuary
• As an emblem of contemporary culture, the
  funeral home is satirized relentlessly. Consider
  its demystification of death, its over
  sanitization of death, and almost emotionless
  approach to death. It lacks the smells and
  heartfelt earthiness of Auntys traditional
  rituals. In a sense, the funeral home represents
  all that is wrong with the modern, materialistic
  approach to life.
• Consider the following details
• The home advertised Lifelike Artistic Techniques
  and Stringent Standards of Sanitization.
• The lack of any trace of ironic self-awareness in
  their repair sign We are making improvements in
  Paradise. (The modern worlds hubris, the story
  implies, might suggest this is possible.)
• The mortuary was air conditioned and smelled of
  floor disinfectant and roses. Soft music came
  from speakers mounted on the walls.
• Clintons calm and wooden statement directing the
  mourners to the reception after someone realizes
  Auntys eyes are open.
• Humor
• Does Watanabe employ humor in her story?
  Consider several details, like the appearance of
  the very tall Yuri next to the short Aunty, the
  elaborate dinners Yuris mother served as
  persuasion tactic, Yuris twenty-five year
  response to death, and more.

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For Further Consideration

• Eudora Welty once said, Fiction depends for its
  life on place every story would be another
  story, and unrecognizable as art, if it took up
  its characters and plot and happened somewhere
  else. Ask students to shift the location of one
  of the stories in this chapter and write a few
  pages about how the characters would be
  different.
• Argue in support of Weltys statement by
  referencing the stories in this chapter.
• James D. Houston is quoted at the beginning of
  the chapter stating that fiction reveals a form
  of dialogue between a place and the lives being
  lived. How does this demonstrate itself in the
  stories in this chapter?
• 4. Compare and contrast the West (or Wests) of
  Kittredge, Gilb, Steinbeck, Silko, and Watanabe.