Mavericks on the Border: The Early Southwest in Historical Fiction and Film

by J. Douglas Canfield

Overview

Twentieth-century authors and filmmakers have created a pantheon of mavericks—some macho, others angst-ridden—who often cross a metaphorical boundary among the literal ones of Anglo, Native American, and Hispanic cultures. Douglas Canfield examines the concept of borders, defining them as the space between states and cultures and ideologies, and focuses on these border crossings as a key feature of novels and films about the region.

Canfield begins in the Old Southwest of Faulkner's Mississippi, addressing the problem of slavery; travels west to North Texas and the infamous Gainesville Hanging of Unionists during the Civil War; and then follows scalpers into the Southwest Borderlands. He then turns to the area of the Gadsden Purchase, known for its outlaws and Indian wars, before heading south of the border for the Yaqui persecution and the Mexican Revolution.

Alongside such well-known works as Go Down Moses, The Wild Bunch, Broken Arrow, Gringo Viejo, and Blood Meridian, Canfield discusses novels and films that tell equally compelling stories of the region. Protagonists face various identity crises as they attempt border crossings into other cultures or mindsets—some complete successful crossings, some go native, and some fail. He analyzes figures such as Geronimo, Doc Holliday, and Billy the Kid alongside less familiar mavericks as they struggle for identity, purpose, and justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813121802
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	11/22/2000
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

J. Douglas Canfield, Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona, is the author of Tricksters and Estates and Heroes and States, a two-volume cultural history of English Restoration drama.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
Part I	South to West	9
1.	Ike McCaslin's Failed Crossing: Go Down, Moses	11
2.	Tragic Glory: A Bright Tragic Thing	26
3.	The Border of Becoming: Theodicy in Blood Meridian	37
Part II	North of the Border	49
4.	Broken Arrow: Crossing as Gesture	51
5.	Lateral Freedom: Buffalo Soldiers	59
6.	Geronimo Framed	66
7.	Tombstone: Violence and the Secular	75
8.	"I'd become my own mother": Big Nose Kate in Doc Holliday's Woman	85
9.	L'Etat c'est moi: Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid	96
10.	"Our Pearl beyond price": I, Pearl Hart	105
Part III	South of the Border	115
11.	Lateral Crossing: Dreams of the Centaur	117
12.	The Impossible Crossing: The Wild Bunch	129
13.	"Circles upon Circles": Last Reveille	139
14.	Monsters from Below: Los de abajo	145
15.	The Feminizing of Freedom and Fulfillment: Como agua para chocolate	164
16.	Mirrors, Dreams, and Memory: Gringo viejo	176
	Epilogue: Crossing into Fascism in Bisbee 17	198
	Notes	213
	Bibliography	225
	Index	232

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating subject and a timely one, dealing as it does with multicultural traditions and with versions of the Western.

John G. Cawelti

Praiseworthy for its ambitious effort to bring together works written in Spanish and in English, as well as canonical literature, popular literature, and film.

American Literature

Locates itself—brilliantly and originally—at the intersection of a geography in the making and a quest for identity, offering the classic Southwest—more an event than a place—as the moral and spiritual region wherein the protagonists attempt a crossing, the shift of identity located in the shifting borderlands.

Armando J. Prats

Wise, urbane, persuasive, and comprehensive.... Canfield does it all and extremely well.

Choice

"Praiseworthy for its ambitious effort to bring together works written in Spanish and in English, as well as canonical literature, popular literature, and film." — American Literature

"Locates itself — brilliantly and originally — at the intersection of a geography in the making and a quest for identity, offering the classic Southwest — more an event than a place — as the moral and spiritual region wherein the protagonists attempt a crossing, the shift of identity located in the shifting borderlands." — Armando J. Prats

"Wise, urbane, persuasive, and comprehensive.... Canfield does it all and extremely well." — Choice

"A fascinating subject and a timely one, dealing as it does with multicultural traditions and with versions of the Western." — John G. Cawelti

From the Publisher

Canfield (English, U. of Arizona) analyzes metaphorical border crossings<-->between ideologies and between cultures<-->in films and novels set in the early US Southwest. In addition to seminal works such as , , and , he considers lesser-known American works, Chicano, Mexican, and Native American literature, and writings by women and ex-slaves. He's most interested in the existential choices characters must make when faced with cultural dilemmas in searching for identity, purpose, and justice. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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