Student Research Report sample d

Research Report- The Anti-myth

        Webster's dictionary describes myth as a fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.  This ideology of the mythic West got out of hand in the 1950's where Western movies and television shows falsely portrayed the west.  The old Westerns romanticized the reality of the cowboy.  Thus creating a myth in American culture that has proved very difficult to undo.  The Anti-mythic Western was first introduced by Larry McMurtry's Horseman Pass By.  Where he takes the characters out of the Wild West and puts them in a post WWII setting. In dispelling the myth of the cowboy he has constructed the Anti-myth to deal honestly with the life and death of the cowboy. The myth of the cowboy has a tight grip on not just Texans, but the entire world is subject to the falsehood of the myth.   McMurtry was aware of his purpose in writing these anti-mythic novels saying that "the death of the cowboy as a vital figure been one of my principal subject, and yet I'm aware that killing the myth of the cowboy is like trying to kill a snapping turtle: no matter what you do to it, the beast retains a sluggish life."  (McMurtry 185) As McMurtry and other authors try to dispel the myth of the Western they change from a romance to a tragic romance.
     The original myth of the Western was the picture of strong, silent men riding their horses on an open range, that myth "grew into a Western image." (Lich 56) The myth of the cowboy does not illustrate the hardships of the true Old West.  McMurtry provides his characters with qualities that are not part of the cowboy myth by making them amusing, included in community life and talkative.  (Busby 182)  McMurtry also gives them flaws like laziness, unethical behavior and foolishness. (Busby 182)  By creating more realistic characters he has constructed an alternative to the myth, the Anti-myth. This alternative uses these faults to change the cowboy from a glorified hero to the tragic hero.  The main characters because of their flaws and personality do not fall into the pattern of romances, where the good guys fight the bad guys.  Many of the anti-mythic Westerns have two equally bad guys not fighting anyone in particular but society. In Kingsolver's Animal Dreams she shows this fight against society which criticizes "both militarist public policy and corporate depredations on the environment." (Jacobs) He strays from the conventional aspects of mythic Westerns, but doesn't loose the feeling of the Old West. (Lich 57)   Even McMurtry's novels to not reject completely the myth of the cowboy, but his come the closest. (Lemann 327) Likewise Barbara Kingsolver keeps the "genre's narrative drive, many of its stock figures and situations, and indeed its popular accessibility," and still  Kingsolver "refutes its ideology." (Jacobs)  
     As Westerns develop they change and grow, like most genres.  As they reject to the myth of the Wild West they include less heroic character and more socialy concisous text.  Kingsolver "unravels the Western's conventional approach to heroism, to violence and death, and to community." (Jacobs) These qualitites change the typical genre of romance to tragic romance.

Works Cited:
1. Busby, Mark. Larry McMurtry and the west: An Ambivalent Relationship. Denton: UNT Press,1995.
Jacobc, Naomi. "Barbara Kingsolver's Anti-Western: 'Unraveling the Myths' in Animal
Dreams." Americana: Journal of American Popular Culture. 2003.
<http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2003/jacobs.htm#top>
Lich, Lera Partick Tyler. Larry McMurty's Texas: Evolution of a Myth. Eakin Press, 1988.
Leemann, Nicholas.  Was It Archer City?, 1987.
McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove. New York: Pocket Books,1985.
---. Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

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