Assessed Presentations in week 5

Next week (week 5) everyone will give an assessed presentation.
Topics as follows:
Becky: A critical comparison of the short story and the film of 'Brokeback Mountain'
Rachel: Close Range as Revisionist Western
Tim: Landscape as Determinant of Character and Narrative in Close Range
Christine, Hannah, Jess: tba.
Do remember that this is a formal assessment, so if you do not attend, without substantiated medical or other reason, you will automatically fail.
all best
JD

Be glad you don't have to live in Proulx's Wyoming

“Be glad you don't have to live in Proulx's Wyoming. Full of empty, philandering men with shady pasts and desperate women who have a habit of dying of unnatural causes. Every ranch is going under, every rancher is on the edge of going down with it. Proulx is like a rocking chair storyteller on a porch whose tales have to end with death or heartbreak or bleakness because this is what her audience expects of her. Rural legends, I'd call them. Proulx is a bit of a sad sack cynic, but she makes you want to be a part of it all. She calls up man's darker side and you know you could be that bull rider or bar girl with a wildness in the eye and a fatal urge to die...”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Close-Range-Wyoming-Stories/dp/customer-reviews/1841150762/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&customer-reviews.start=1#customerReviews


This review gives a clear showing of the style used by Proulx. The reader obviously found the use of imagery fascinating and was encapsulated by Proulx’s understanding of Wyoming and the vastness of it. This reader seems to enjoy the harshness of the read, perhaps reminding him/herself of how life could be potentially worse?

Annie Proulx, Close Range book review.

http://www.theromancereader.com/proulx-range.html

The review I chose is quite a detailed review that analyses Annie Proulx's work in depth commenting on the style of her writing as "unrelentingly gritty, fashioned by a compassionate and exceptionally skilled observer." It is quite a personal review as the writer Thea Davis uses first person narrative to describe how she feels towards the book, " I understood: that each character's voice is truly hers; that she has an enormous amount to say; and that I would be greatly enriched by listening."
I think the review is quite informative as in the Thea Davis opens up her review to the descriptions of what the book is like and about followed by her own personal opinions of what she took and learnt from the book.

Close Range book review

http://littlebirdreview.wordpress.com/2007/02/12/close-range-by-annie-proulx/

I found this book review on close range, its quite a personal review. i found it interesting to see that the writer of the review comments on how Annie Proulx took 3 novels to inpress this reader. I haven't read any of Proulx's other books so i can't comment but this review does make me want to go and read them. I like the honesty about this review that the writer only read the book for the Brokeback Mountain story and only after along time did they read the other stories. I think the reviewer has a very good way of describing Proulx's writing by describing it as ' a sence of eerie, dark humour' which i think is an excellent description. Although this review doesn't tell me much about the stories it does inform me of the other stories which the reviewer enjoyed. i think the reviewer uses a great quote, to be honest i didn't even notice the sentence the reviewer quoted when i read that story but it made me go back and have a look at it.

Annie Proulx's 'Close Range' Review:

I selected this article as it notes Annie Proulx’s strong view of a vicious lonely life of rustic living. It mentions her use of language, descriptions of Annie Proulx’s knowledge of the west is exposed all through her stories.
The reviewer, Jim Carvalho also makes good use of quotes from the stories throughout his evaluation of ‘Close Range’.
Jim Carvalho in this article is keen on the stories and believes that the prizes Annie Proulx won for them were well deserved.

Review of Close Range by Annie Proulx

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/23/reviews/990523.23ederlt.html

I chose this review from the New York times purely for its sub-title. It makes it quite obvious how Proulx's book has decided to destroy the stereotype created about the "wild west". Using segments from the book entwined with the actual review shows the audience exactly what is meant by the point.
Richard Eder ends his review with a quote from on the grittiest stories in Close Range. The quote is really poignant and a very good way to sum up what the book is about.

Rachel

Letter from Estella Stilgebouer to Ella Roesch, August 3, 1911

I chose this article of a letter sent between Estella and addressed mainly to her sister and the rest of her family, as it gives quite a descriptive account of what life was like living out West in the early 20th Century. Times were still hard to get through in the middle of the U.S where there were scarce rainfall, as described in the letter that because of the shortage of rainfall some of their crops were failing.
There are many descriptions within her letter of the town shes living in with a church having been built there as it is mentioned, which makes it quite interesting in drawing a picture of what life was like in the mid West around a hundred years ago.

Letter from Short Straitgate to Mattie V. Thomas, March 27, 1862

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/ps:@field(DOCID+l002)
I found this letter written to Mattie V Thomas from Miss Mattie, i found it really interesting to read. I was surprised that the things 'Miss Mattie' talks about are quite normal everyday life things, like baking and being ill. Life seems to go on just as normal to these 'settlers'. They seem to have set up a good life for themselves and seeing as they are writting to each other then communication between the settlers and the old towns must be pretty good. I found it interesting that Mattie was sending her wool and hair to use, i presume that mattie must be a trader of some sort. At the end of the letter you get the idea that Miss Mattie misses the person she is writing to dearly because she comments on how she wished he was there that morning. I didn't think before about how familys may have been split up with people moving and settling west. i presume it wasn't always the whole family that moved. I think this letter is very interesting to read and gives an insite into what life was like for these new settlers.

Priarie Settlement and California as i saw it

First Person account of the Priarie settlement:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

This link provides letters and photographs of the Uriah W. Oblinger family which help illustrate the story of settlement on the great plains. The Oblinger family letters discuss land, work, neighbours, crops, religious meetings, problems with grasshoppers, financial problems, and the Easter Blizzard of 1873. They also present some personal insight in to the joy and struggle of establishing a home in the Prairie.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/ps:@field(DOCID+l003) Here is an example of a letter sent from John Verity to Mattie V. Thomas, August 29, 1862.

California as i saw it:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/

Map Observations

The Map shows the growth of communications in the States. In 1850, the only way to commute was to travel through the rivers such as the Mississippi river which was one of the main navigable rivers to get to the west. There were also major Western trails, such as the Platte Trail and the Santa Fe Trail.
By the 1860's, small rail lines were constructed in the East, only transporting people east of the mississippi river. It wasn;t until the 1900's that transcontinental railways were constructed, connecting the east to the west. This allowed America to slowly grow towards the west.


Map three shows the territorial growth of America. America started off with 13 states, whicih clung to the atlantic coast, In 1783, due to the revolutionary war, Britain cedes all land east of the mississippi river. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased Louissiana from France. This helped double the size the nation.

By 1819, Spain held the land to the west and south. Florida was ceaded to the United States.

By the 1830's texas became an independent state....

Map 4 shows us that the west had many areas with less than 8 inches of rainfall annually- suggesting the wests lack of water. Most of the chief navigable rivers only run to the midwest of the nation.

Map 5 shows us that by 1750, eastern America was well settled. It shows us that as you move through to the west, many areas only had a population density of less than 2 percent per squaremile. Map 6 also shows us that east of the mississippi river, the population was high , with over 45 people per square mile living in the east. A maximum of 18 per square mile were living in the west, but the majority of the west was populated with a population of 2 per square mile.

One painting, one photo of the west

http://www.maxdstandley.com/giclees/i/the_trail_of_tears.jpg

the above painting is a painting of the trail of tears, as the Native Americans were relocated to other lands, the frontier continued to push them further and further west.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-oldwest/JudgeRoyBean-500.jpg

a photo of a much romanticised west, cowboys sitting around on the porch of a bar. the typical image of an old western culture.

the frontier mentality in modern USA

The article i have chosen to look at for this weeks blog is a small essay which discusses situations that the frontier set in motion. In particular it mentions how the mentality of going down to basics when the going gets tough and building up civilization after that. So instilling a work ethic that is still inherent in todays America. The article mentions the melting pot of culture in America today, which can be easily acredited to the building up of a "new" America as the frontier moved west.

http://www.cyberessays.com/History/158.htm

Week 3: First person account of Western Settlement

http://www.stumpranchonline.com/skagitjournal/WestCounty/MV-SW/Pre-1900/Washburn2-EarlySettlers.html

I have chosen to concentrate on the above website due to the content found. Historian Deanna Ammans came across these letters to the first edition of Skagit News in 1884. Skagit county is located in Washington, and so named after the Native American Indian tribe that settled there. The letters give us an insight to an account of the very first white woman to be seen in Skagit County and also of the Washburn Families accounts of what went on.

I think these are very interesting to read as it certainly delves into what happened during the late 1800s when talking about settling.

Rachel.

Contributing

The topics for your weekly contributions are set either in the AM1212 module handbook, or in the weekly handouts. Please make sure you keep up to date. If you don't you may fail the assessment, and our small group meetings will be disabled.
So, looking forward to seeing your postings on settler's narratives.

2008

begins here. Please make your posts on the topics indicated in the weekly schedule. We meet at....