{"title":"Mark Twain’s Ambivalent Encounter with the Western Landscape","authors":"J. W. Leonard","doi":"10.5325/marktwaij.20.1.0190","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:When Mark Twain sets out on his journey west in chapter 1 of Roughing It, he is looking forward to seeing Indians and such creatures as buffalo, prairie dogs, and antelopes; traveling through (or near) magnificent plains, deserts, and mountains; and at the end of the journey, gathering bucketfuls of easily obtainable gold and silver nuggets. What he carries with him, however—aside from some clothing, his Smith & Wesson seven-shooter, Orion’s Colt revolver, and an unabridged dictionary (belonging to Orion)—are some pretty standard preconceptions about the West and its inhabitants. Though such themes reinforce our generic expectations, Twain manages to check crucial elements of expansionist desire through the novel’s various iterations of failure. In this article, I explore ways in which the rhetoric of individualist “lordship” never fully manifests, even as the landscape itself largely offers up its promissory grandeur and tabula rasa potentiality.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":"20 1","pages":"190 - 200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mark Twain Annual","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.20.1.0190","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, AMERICAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:When Mark Twain sets out on his journey west in chapter 1 of Roughing It, he is looking forward to seeing Indians and such creatures as buffalo, prairie dogs, and antelopes; traveling through (or near) magnificent plains, deserts, and mountains; and at the end of the journey, gathering bucketfuls of easily obtainable gold and silver nuggets. What he carries with him, however—aside from some clothing, his Smith & Wesson seven-shooter, Orion’s Colt revolver, and an unabridged dictionary (belonging to Orion)—are some pretty standard preconceptions about the West and its inhabitants. Though such themes reinforce our generic expectations, Twain manages to check crucial elements of expansionist desire through the novel’s various iterations of failure. In this article, I explore ways in which the rhetoric of individualist “lordship” never fully manifests, even as the landscape itself largely offers up its promissory grandeur and tabula rasa potentiality.
期刊介绍：
The Mark Twain Annual publishes articles related to Mark Twain and those who surrounded him and serves as an outlet for new scholarship as well as new pedagogical approaches. It is the official publication of the Mark Twain Circle of America, an international association of people interested in the life and work of Mark Twain. The Circle encourages interest in Mark Twain and fosters the formal presentation of ideas about the author and his work, as well as the informal exchange of information among its members.
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
分享
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
扫码关注我们
