An Analysis Of American Spirit In The Virginian

In American history, the Westward Movement has not only exerted great influenceupon American politics and economy, but produced the frontier spirit in ideologicalsphere. Frederick Jackson Turner laid the foundation for modern historical study of theAmerican West and presented a “frontier thesis” that continued to influence historicalthinking even today. This theory was especially welcomed by the American elite whowere trying to raise their status in high society. By the means of frontier thesis Americanscould assert their parity and own superiority, and turning the tables on Europeanchauvinism. The frontier thesis argued that Europeans due to the crushing ofoverpowering cultural traditions had lost their priority, they were effete. In contrast,culture in American was weaker but people had become stronger and more important.Moreover, the frontier thesis proved to be a perfect ways by which Americans portraythemselves as being on a par with Europeans.The romance of the cowboy began shortly after the Civil War, expressed in dimenovels and live popular entertainments presented by actual Wild West figures，promotedby Theodore Roosevelt, and swept the country with Owen Wister’s novel, The Virginian,which went into thirty-five printings in its first seven years. Owen Wister’s representativework The Virginian introduced the cowboy into American literary history. His cowboystory creates a basic cowboy story formula and the hero as a classic frontier man.The cowboy story allowed the traits of individualism, pragmatism, and frontier spiritreassert themselves in the New World; these frontier spirits were embraced and regardingas American characters and civilization. The hero in The Virginian is a complete cowboyimage that carries American frontier spirit infuses and encourages modern American. Tosome extent, the cowboy spirit is the origin of the American spirit. As frontier closing,the cowboy has gone, but frontier spirit has integrated into American society throughliterature. Wister combined the Turner theory with his own experience of the west. Hecreated The Virginian, the archetypical cowboy novel. For Wister, the life on the plains,the only way of adapting the environment is using personal strength and learned theindividualism and put into practice. In Wister’s novel, the closing of the frontier is notdisplaced the hero, but he can adapts himself to civilization and becomes the central force within Eastern society. The frontier appears as an incubator for an emerging Americannational character and as a forge where the frontier spirit is cast.This thesis consists of three parts, including an introduction, the main body and aconclusion.The main body is made up of three chapters:Chapter one makes an overview of cowboy story. James Fenimore Cooper as aninnovator established the cowboy story foundation. Owen Wister’s The Virginian mergedCooper’s plot formula with Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, Wister’sinnovation gave the cowboy a new lease on life and it’s a staple of American popularculture. In20th, Zane Gray’s The Vanishing American and Walter Van Tilburg Clark’sThe Ox Bow Incident are two classic cowboy novels, both transcended Wister’s frontierthesis plotline by updating its message to new realities. American western literature setshis background on the Vast West territory which originated in Westward Movement.The cowboy is the main hero of these western stories who finalized the American spirit;Western novels picture the hardships in western frontier life, and celebrate the spirit ofpioneers struggling for existence. This national spirit formed in this unique environmentis the kernel of American spirit.Chapter Two focuses on the American spirit in The Virginian, the spirit ofindividualism, pragmatism and frontier are the essence of American spirit, which fullyshowed in this story. Molly Wood is obviously a metaphorical duplication of the heroicfrontier spirit born when the East was experiencing its own pioneer era. She exhibitsvestigial remains which had once existed in the East but had moved westward with theexpanding frontier. This echoes the Turner thesis, which depicts individualistic traits ofthe frontier being submerged beneath the veneer of society, but very much alive. Incontrast to Molly, the Virginian represents the frontier individualist personified. He isdepicted as an archetypical product of the American frontier.Chapter Three is to demonstrate the realistic significance of cowboy spirit, thesespirit and cowboy culture have become an essential part of American social life. Thecowboy spirit has incorporated into American national character. Cowboy or cowboyspirit now extends to virtually all societies and to most levels of those societies.Americans fell in love with the cowboy as their romantic hero, the cowboy helped to create what is now of their largest industries, Hollywood. Western continued to thrive formore than a half century, shaping American values, aspirations, and fantasies. Theessential story the filmmakers were telling was a narrative of courage and honor.America cowboy culture have fully developed by absorb the essence of multicultural. Itis distinct from European or any other countries. The cowboy became a staple of popularAmerican novels. The literary cowboy heroes brought law and order to the American OldWest and served as super men. All of the cowboy heroes stand for the version of virtue,honesty, and decorous behavior. The cowboy spirit was, is, and will be cherished by thenation and people as great treasure.