Deanna Scott

May 2, 2010

Essay 2: Same Word, Different Meaning

(Introductory Paragraphs Excerpted)

          People take for granted of the idea that everyone has a better life than theirs. Often the phrases “the grass is greener on the other side” or “take a mile in another man’s shoes” come to mind. Each phrase is an example of close reading and intertextuality. Close reading is literary interpretation, a person may either accept the written text as it is presented or they will pause, reread, and think over what they have just read. Intertextuality explains that even though people read and write one text at a time, the text do not exist independently of each other but rather in a network of shared words, meanings, and issues. The novels “The Best Little Boy in the World” by Andrew Tobias, “Bless Me, Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya, “Love Medicine” by Louise Erdrich, and “Black Elk Speaks” by John G. Neihardt exemplify close reading and intertextuality of similar issues and ideas but imply a different message to the reader.

Ordinarily, the term cowboy inspires the idea of tough and rugged men living on the land, driving cattle, gun slingers, living wild and free in the Old West. Both “Bless Me, Ultima” and “The Best Little Boy in the World” use the term cowboy but with different implied results. Following a close reading, Gabriel Márez, the father, from “Bless Me, Ultima” was previously a cowboy, “a vaquero all his life” who loved the free lands of the llano and lived the life of “the coarse men who lived half their lifetimes on horseback,” (Anaya p.2). Andrew of “The Best Little Boy in the World” desired to be a cowboy, a very different cowboy. “Just to be like the Hardy Boys, two blood brothers, two cowboys,” (Tobias p. 35). On the surface, both men have the idea of cowboys being men who are free to travel and do as they please. “Cowboys don’t marry; they just pal around on the range and whore it up when they came to into town,” (Tobias p. 86). In contrast there are those who share a different belief of the glorifying cowboy image. “Vaqueros, they call themselves, they are worthless drunks! Thieves! Always on the move, like gypsies,” (Anaya p. 9). A cowboy’s life is not the easiest or the most glamorous life. They are simply men who live alone from civilization for long periods of time. Occasionally they come into civilized contact, such as women. “The best little cowboys in the world don’t even whore it up: Look at the Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion. Did you ever see them eyeing pussy on the street?” (Tobias p. 86).

The cowboy is treated as the ultimate symbol of masculinity and freedom. Both men enjoy the companionship that being a cowboy presumably entitles. For Gabriel Márez, his companions were his friends and drinking buddies until he got married. Marriage, females, anything that is feminine, is a threat to Andrew’s ideal cowboy fantasy. “Cowboys don’t marry; they just pal around on the range,”. They leave themselves open to multiple relationships. Andrew, had several relationships because he only accepted male companionship for short periods of times. If a cowboy accepts a female companionship instead of male companionship then a cowboy is no longer free to roam. Gabriel, “a vaquero all his life”, married María, a woman who “was not a woman of the llano, she was the daughter of a farmer,” (Anaya p. 2). In comparison, farmers and marriage, take root in one spot. “She persuaded my father to leave the llano and bring her family to the town of Guadalupe where she said there would be opportunity and school for us. The move lowered my father in the esteem of his compadres, the other vaqueros of the llano who clung tenaciously to their way of life and freedom,” (Anaya p. 2). . . .