Outlaw Hero Research Articles

The Postcolonial Jamaican Outlaw Hero in Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come

Abstract: Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (1972, Jamaica) shows the harsh realities of Jamaica, an island that, since colonization, has been a compartmentalized, divided world. This article looks at how Henzell represents postcolonial Jamaica as a small place where there are two distinct social classes inhabiting the same island in the sun. After a brief history of cinema, both filmed and shown, in Jamaica, this article uses The Harder They Come to show that postcolonial Jamaica is just colonial Jamaica going by a new name. It also looks at Ivan Martin as an outlaw hero who belongs in the pantheon of other Jamaican outlaw heroes and freedom fighters such as Queen Nanny, Apongo and Tacky, Sam Sharpe, and Paul Bogle. The article further shows that, as an outlaw hero, Ivan becomes a living idea: he becomes something that, even after the last reel, cannot be killed.

Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero by Devon A. Mihesuah

Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero by Devon A. Mihesuah

Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero by Devon Abbot Mihesuah

Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and Cherokee Hero by Devon Abbot Mihesuah

Hell gigs: the stand-up comic as outlaw hero

ABSTRACTThis article examines a particular genre of ‘road story’ favored by professional stand-up comics. ‘Road stories’ is a colloquial term used by comedians to describe the narratives they share with one another and sometimes others in order to pass the time, to relive an experience, or to enact the role of performer off stage. These stories represent an adaptation to a particular constraint faced by stand-up comics in their conversations with one another. There are strong mores within the community of professional comedians against telling ‘jokes’ anywhere but on the stage. This is a result of the widely held belief that only amateurs ‘try out’ material back stage. At the same time, stand-up comics have the desire to be perceived as funny by their peers. The road story genre allows comics to be funny without ‘doing material’. This paper describes a particular genre of these stories, ‘hell gigs’, in which stand-up comics recount their most difficult performances.

Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television by Rebecca A. Umland

Reviewed by: Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television by Rebecca A. Umland Alan Baragona rebecca a. umland, Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2016. Pp. 296. isbn: 978–0–7864–7988–7. $39.95. It is an old-said saw that 'all comparisons are odious.' So Rebecca Umland has waded into somewhat dangerous waters as she seeks to compare Casablanca's Rick Blaine, Shane, Dirty Harry, and Batman, among others, to the medieval knight errant in general and to Malory's Lancelot in particular. In Outlaw Heroes as Liminal Figures of Film and Television, Umland traces the origin of the heroic loner in Hollywood films about cops, vigilantes, and action heroes back to cinematic and television westerns (including the 'disguised western' Casablanca), and ultimately to medieval romance and the figure of the knight, principally Malory's Lancelot. The book is organized into three sections. The Introduction and Part I begin by establishing the typology of the literary knight first in the Middle Ages and then as reinterpreted primarily in the Victorian Age. Umland then traces the lone knight errant as reincarnated on film in Casablanca and Shane and on television in The Lone Ranger and Have Gun—Will Travel. Part II treats two Hollywood franchises that begin in the 1970s, the maverick cop Dirty Harry series and the vigilante Death Wish series. Ulmand refers to these as 'urban westerns.' Part III explores two more franchises featuring action heroes that combine aspects of both the cop and the vigilante into the 'elite warrior': Rambo and Batman (in this case, appropriately, focusing on the Batman of the so-called Dark Knight series). The connection between these real, disguised, and urban westerns and chivalric romance is unquestionable. Nor is it accidental. Batman is a 'dark knight'; the gunslinger/mercenary of Have Gun—Will Travel is named 'Paladin' and uses a chess knight on his business card. Through extensive research, Umland reveals less obvious connections, as well. In one episode of the Lone Ranger radio show, the voiceover says, 'there is a light that must have burned in the eyes of knights in armor' (p. 63). Shane, the novel says, represents 'all that makes a man' (p. 43), a phrase from Tennyson's Idylls of the King. The final season of Have Gun—Will Travel opened with an 'origin story' in which viewers learn the hero was given the name 'Paladin' by a mentor who not only perceives the hero as a 'gentleman knight in shiny armor' (p. 74), but calls the villain of the story a dragon. [End Page 81] Once Umland enters the deeper woods of medieval romance itself, however, the parallels become more tenuous. She finds three traits of the knight reflected in the liminal outlaw hero, characteristics that become a unifying theme throughout the book. First, they are loners, either wandering or in some self-imposed exile or isolation. Second, they are free from permanent domestic entanglements and, in the end, always remain in their loner state. And they act according to a private moral code, often a 'higher law' at odds with 'official' societal authority. These are the characteristics of the 'true knight' as gleaned from Umland's main source, Beverly Kennedy's classic Knighthood in the 'Morte Darthur.' One can see how Lancelot might illustrate all three traits. He often wanders on errantry; he cannot marry; and, most importantly, when Guenevere is condemned to the stake for adultery, Lancelot, according to Umland, puts his personal code of honor and love above the law, rescues her, and precipitates a civil war with the official authority, King Arthur. Yet, upon closer examination of Lancelot's story in comparison to, say, Shane or Rick Blaine, cracks appear in the analogy. First, a knight errant is not a drifter. He is seeking whatever aventure God gives him to increase his worship at court, so errantry is socially sanctioned. Nor is he disillusioned or otherwise damaged, like Shane or Rick or even the Lone Ranger. The hero knight's moral code is not individualistic or at odds with official authority. The libertarian streak so prominent in the myth of the West is alien...

The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth by Joseph M. Beilein Jr., Matthew C. Hulbert

Reviewed by: The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth by Joseph M. Beilein Jr., Matthew C. Hulbert Scott Thompson The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth. By Joseph M. Beilein Jr. and Matthew C. Hulbert. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Pp. vii, 245.) The contributors to The Civil War Guerrilla, edited by Joseph M. Beilein Jr. and Matthew C. Hulbert, shed new light on irregular warfare during the Civil War and its place in American memory. The editors symbolize their approach to irregular warfare with the black flag. According to contemporary writings, irregulars raised it to signal a fight to the death. However, no such flags can be found in any archive. The volume’s essays “unfold the black flag,” tracing “both guerrillas and our perceptions of them from history to memory to myth” (11). Contributors refute the long-standing popular and scholarly view of the guerrilla as a merciless, apolitical villain. They engage Michael Fellman’s view of irregulars as participants in a sociopathic war. The volume also builds on Daniel Sutherland’s work demonstrating that local insurgencies shaped the outcome of the national Civil War. The volume ultimately seeks to explore and reassess the Civil War irregular’s place in American culture and history. Writing at a time of major growth in the irregular warfare subfield, this volume’s essays make an important contribution to Civil War studies. They do so by expanding the profile of the Civil War irregular soldier and by writing a new chapter in the story of how Americans have remembered the Civil War. Moreover, they succeed in disproving mythical stereotypes of irregular warfare and introducing new ways of researching this type of combat. The first set of essays examines the nature and participants of Civil War irregular warfare. Christopher Phillips highlights the ideological nature of irregular warfare in the western border states. Contesting the belief that irregulars were nihilists with personalized motives, Phillips cites official reports revealing that irregular activity erupted in response to the Unionist’s effort at emancipation. Andrew William Fialka uses GIS mapping technology to show that rather than being unpredictable and chaotic, Missouri’s irregular war had a larger order. His findings include that irregulars targeted Union soldiers more often than civilians and cooperated with the regular Confederate Army. In a comparative piece that expands the geographic boundaries of irregular warfare studies, David Brown and Patrick Doyle explore how the more commercial and politically divided North Carolina Piedmont underwent an acute irregular conflict, but the South Carolina Piedmont, located in the pro-Confederate cotton belt, never witnessed a large degree of guerrilla violence. Incorporating new racial groups into the story of Civil War irregular warfare, Megan Kate Nelson explores how Native Americans preserved a centuries-long guerilla tradition and conducted ambushes that [End Page 88] doomed Henry Sibley’s campaign to implement the Confederate dream of a western slave empire. Memory studies populate the second half of the volume. Hulbert’s piece on guerrilla memory reveals that the memoir of Thomas M. Goodman formed a part of the Civil War “memory industry.” Goodman portrayed “Bloody” Bill Anderson’s guerrillas as inhuman and sadistic to counter the border West’s “irregular Lost Cause” and to ensure that the sacrifices of Union soldiers fighting in the Kansas-Missouri irregular war would be remembered. John C. Inscoe discusses how the American public started to understand irregular warfare through literary fiction and theatrical productions about Appalachia in the 1860s. Unionist and pro-Confederate writers and playwrights venerated their favored side’s irregulars and demonized those of the enemy. In his essay, Rod Andrew Jr. examines the interaction between myth and fact in the story of Manse Jolly, a postbellum outlaw hero who resisted what white Southerners termed “Yankee tyranny” and “negro rule.” Beilein’s work “explores ... the process by which Confederate guerrillas ... have been wrapped in myth and hyperbole” (10). After hiding his intentions from former Confederate guerrilla William Gregg, who agreed to help conduct his research, amateur historian William Connelley selectively cited Gregg’s memoir to paint William Quantrill’s Confederate irregulars as blood-thirsty monsters motivated by self...

Introduction to the Story of Hong Gildong

Introduction to the Story of Hong Gildong Minsoo Kang (bio) The importance of Hong Gildong Jeon (The Story of Hong Gildong) to Korean culture is hard to exaggerate. As a prime example of soseol (prose fiction) written prior to the modern period, it has the advantage over more esoteric works like Kim Manjung’s Nine Cloud Dream in featuring an exciting story of a righteous outlaw hero who has often been described as the Korean Robin Hood. In the twentieth century, his narrative has been retold, revisioned, and updated so many times in fiction, films, television shows, and comic books that his place as the most famous icon from classical literature is rivaled only by Chunhyang. Even the vast majority of modern Koreans who have never actually read the original work are familiar with the story of the illegitimate son (traditionally called seoeol, or a secondary child) of a nobleman and his lowborn concubine who leaves home in frustration at his inability to pursue his ambitions through government service, becomes the leader of a band of outlaws who dedicate themselves to robbing from the rich and the powerful, and eventually leaves Joseon to become a king of his own realm. Scholarly study of the work, however, has been hampered by certain misconceptions about its origin and significance that have also been firmly established in the public consciousness through repetition in school textbooks. The most prevalent of the [End Page 221] misconceptions include the following: 1. Hong Gildong Jeon was written by the Joseon dynasty poet and statesmen Heo Gyun (1569–1618). 2. Hong Gildong Jeon is a narrative manifesto of Heo Gyun’s radical political ideas. 3. Hong Gildong Jeon is the first work of prose fiction to be originally composed in the native phonetic script of hangeul. These ideas appeared in the pioneering work Joseon Soseolsa (History of Joseon Prose Fiction) by Kim Taejun which was first serialized in the newspaper Donga Ilbo from 1930 to 1931, and was collected into a book in 1933. It is the first full-length study of the subject that laid the foundation for all future study of classical fiction, but recently scholars have had to grapple with numerous mistakes, unsupported assertions, and ideological interpretations in the work that have solidified into standard readings through decades of uncritical acceptance. As a nationalist and a communist, Kim Taejun presented a subversive reading of Hong Gildong Jeon in which he portrayed Heo Gyun as a proto-socialist who wrote the work to criticize the feudalistic order of Joseon and who planned a revolution to overthrow the kingdom in order to create a more egalitarian state in its place.1 The sole basis for the attribution comes from the writings of Yi Sik (1584–1647), who was once a student of Heo but turned against him for reasons of court politics. In a rather unflattering portrait of his former teacher, Yi claims that Heo and his closest friends were such admirers of the Chinese bandit epic Water Margin that he wrote Hong Gildong Jeon in imitation.2 Because Yi Sik emerged as one of the most important literary figures of the late Joseon dynasty, his assertion that Heo Gyun wrote a story about the historical [End Page 222] bandit (there are a few records in the royal records of an outlaw named Hong Gildong who was captured in 1500) was repeated numerous times by various writers. There is, however, no evidence that Yi Sik had actually read or even seen the work, and none that can demonstrate that the work supposedly written by Heo Gyun in the seventeenth century is related in any way to the extant work of that title. In fact, when one considers the entire history of Joseon prose fiction that has recently emerged from numerous necessary corrections of Kim Taejun’s view on the subject, it seems highly improbable that a work of that nature, one composed originally in hangeul no less, could have been written that early. Under the able leadership of the eighteenth-century monarchs Yeongjo and Jeongjo, Joseon enjoyed a prolonged period of peace and prosperity that also created the conditions necessary for the development of a market for...

Introducción al boxeo de la flor del ciruelo: historia, cultura y práctica

<em>Meihuaquan</em> (“Plum Blossom Fist [Boxing]”) has traditionally been practiced as vernacular (folk) art practiced among the Han ethnic group residing in the Shandong, Henan and Hebei Provinces of China. Historical documentation dates Plum Blossom Boxing to the seventeenth century. The classic Chinese novel, <em>Shu</em><em>ǐhǔ Zhuàn </em>(<em>Marsh Chronicles</em>) recounts the martial exploits of Shandong’s twelfth century outlaw heroes who may have been Mei Boxers, also. Thus, for perhaps a millennium, the region has been noted for vernacular martial arts and social banditry. The region’s rampant lawlessness promoted highly-developed martial prowess among both lawbreakers and those who were required to protect themselves against the brigands. Cultural, economic, and environmental factors in the region gave rise to heterodox political and religious beliefs that frequently served as a catalyst for martial sects, most notably the “Boxers” who at the turn of the twentieth century, came into conflict with the imperial government. These factors laid the groundwork for the “character traits” of the art while Taoism, the Five Elements theory, and a concept of predictable change shaped Plum Boxing’s strategic and mechanical principles. In the past decade, there have been efforts to globalize this vernacular martial art. Rather than driving Plum Boxing to extinction it is likely that the folk and the “larger than local” will co-exist.

Outlaw heroes in myth and history

This book provides an overview and analysis of the global tradition of the outlaw hero. The mythology and history of the outlaw hero is traced from the Roman Empire to the present, showing how both real and mythic figures have influenced social, political, economic and cultural outcomes in many times and places.

LINKS IN JOURNEY OF IDEA TO PRODUCT IN CREATIVE WRITING

This study aims to discuss “Links in Journey of Idea to Product in Creative Writing”. The study explores influencing elements in creative writing process up to be a literary work as a masterpiece. Methods of the study consist of qualitative design in explaining discourse, library research in collecting data, and causal approach in answering the problem statement that is how and why creative writing can promote local culture. Units of analysis cover the factors in the elements building the literary work as the product of creative writing conducted by author. Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees the author from the mass identity he or she sees all around. In the end, he or she will write not to be outlaw hero of some under culture but mainly to save him or herself, to survive as individuals. Furthermore, creative writing is anything in which the purpose is to express thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than to simply convey information. Keywords: journey, creative writing, literary work, author

"The Indispensable Informer": Daniel O'Sullivan Goula and the Phoenix Society, 1858-59

"The Indispensable Informer":Daniel O'Sullivan Goula and the Phoenix Society, 1858-59 Padraic Kennedy (bio) As the weeklong treason-felony trial of accused Phoenix Society conspirator Daniel O'Sullivan neared its end on the evening of 12 March 1859, a visibly exhausted Thomas O'Hagan, Queen's Counsel, who had already spoken for nearly nine hours, closed his summation for the defense with a withering assault on the crown's most crucial evidence—the testimony of an informer named, coincidentally, Daniel O'Sullivan but called "Goula." 1 The renowned Belfast-born advocate implored the jury not to convict based on the lies of a triple traitor—to his sovereign, to his comrades, and again to his sovereign. . . . You cannot act on testimony so corrupt, sustained by circumstances so contemptible as have been paraded before you by the crown. You will acquit the prisoner, and in acquitting him, you will tell the world that you do not approve of practices which have consecrated to immortal infamy the memory of Armstrong and made the name of Reynolds a word of fear with which the Irish mother stills her froward child. 2 [End Page 147] Two of the jurors seemed swayed by O'Hagan's eloquence. Their refusal to vote for conviction led to the dismissal of the jury and a retrial two weeks later. 3 But in evoking the "hideous spectre" of traitors from the Rebellion of 1798, O'Hagan appealed to an Irish revulsion toward informers that was wider and deeper than the jurors' opinions of Goula. By 1859 informers were already well established as stock characters in the Irish national drama. 4 These folkloric villains manifested themselves in Irish legends as treacherous comrades who enabled the British to capture outlaw heroes; in broadside ballads, as the worst of all enemies of the Irish cause; in novels and short stories, as the scoundrels who entrapped and then betrayed peasants involved in agrarian secret societies; and in popular histories, as the turncoats primarily responsible for defeating the United Irishmen in the 1790s. 5 The occasional well-publicized [End Page 148] prosecutions of suspected Ribbonmen, which almost always seemed to feature one conspirator testifying against another, also kept informers in the public eye. 6 That the Irish particularly hated yet were particularly susceptible to becoming informers seemed self-evident when O'Hagan made his plea to the jury in 1859. This perception has remained. Despite a vigorous revision and reinterpretation of many other conventions of Irish history, scholars have largely accepted the oversized importance of informers without questioning or commenting on their significance or meaning. Even Stephen Greer's nuanced examination of the use of "supergrasses" during the recent conflict in Northern Ireland offered a far less critical interpretation of earlier informers, mentioning them mainly to establish the existence of a longstanding and dishonorable Irish tradition. 7 The few scholars who have tried to [End Page 149] explain the reasons behind Ireland's apparent preoccupation with informers have argued that it reflected a "constant resistance to a deeply resented colonial regime" and opposition to "the rule of English law." 8 But without directly addressing the role of informers, works examining agrarian crime, political violence, and nationalism in Ireland have suggested that the issue was too complex for such straightforward explanations. For instance, Robert J. Scally and W.E. Vaughan, among others, demonstrated the extent to which local or personal circumstances rather than hostility to authority might account for resistance to or cooperation with the forces of order. 9 Recently, some historians have directly questioned the importance of informers and their place within Irish nationalism. Thomas Bartlett suggested that the role played by turncoats and spies in undermining the 1798 rebellion has been exaggerated, in part because Catholic clergymen, Dublin Castle, and the rebels all saw advantages to highlighting these traitors. Oliver Knox focused on the exploits of informers in the 1790s but stressed the complexity of [End Page 150] their motives and the limits of their effectiveness. The most provocative reinterpretation came from Peter Hart in his study of the Cork IRA between 1916 and 1923. Hart contended that republicans exploited the "informer myth" in order to undermine their enemies within the...

The Robin Hood Principle: Folklore, History, and the Social Bandit

The debate over the social bandit's existence has raged ever since the original publication of Eric Hobsawm's Social Bandits in 1969. Hobsbawm's argument that a few individuals in the history of crime and politics transcend the status of the criminal to become truly representative of an oppressed group's struggle has been reinforced or attacked by historians, anthropologists, and political scientists. Given folklorists' interest in the origins, roles, and meanings of heroes, it is odd that folklorists have only marginally participated in these debates. This study of outlaws offers a mediation between the conflicting poles of the debate. By investigating both the history and folklore surrounding outlaw heroes, the mythologies that produce and sustain them can be understood as a series of identifiable cultural processes. These processes can be expressed in a general principle—the Robin Hood principle—and modeled as an iterated cycle of cause and effect that is profoundly implicated in folklore. As well as providing a broad understanding of the production and perpetuation of outlaw hero figures, the model also has a predictive dimension.

Redistribution and its Discontents: On the Prospects of Committed Work in Public Mental Health and Like Settings

Refusal of services has long been treated as prima facie evidence of a disordered mind; this paper inquires instead into the tainted nature of the offer. I first sketch the conflicted nature of relief in the American welfare state—hedged so as to ensure only the truly needy will apply—and the way symbolic means are deployed to that end. I then go on to suggest that refusal to accept aid on those terms (even among the street-dwelling, psychiatrically disabled homeless) may be a last-resort exercise of self-respect. This dynamic has an ancient pedigree, whose mythic prototype is Philoctetes. Equally striking is the legacy of the outlaw hero of the story, apparent in the ways frontline workers today contrive to outwit the system’s structural constraints. These anomalous forms of “committed work”—acts of resistance delivering both effort and benefit that cannot be bought—are my real concern. I review ethnographic work suggesting that such acts of common ministry are well-documented exceptions to the broad commodification of care and take their toll on the workers themselves. The paper closes, ruefully, with an acknowledgment of the contradictory valence of system-sustaining resistance that is so easily co-opted and integrated as compensation for “institutional bad faith” (Bourdieu).

"Outlawed" in Oz: A Film & History Associate Editor Visits Australia

At the invitation of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, I had the opportunity to travel to the land down under in early February 2004 to participate in an international conference, Representing Outlaws: Bushrangers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries in Popular Culture. This invitation grew out of the museum's interest in our 2003 (volume 33) issues on American West(s) in Film, Television, and History. I had the pleasure of guest editing those issues and the privilege of working with many fine scholars. Those issues resulted from Film & History's successful conference in Kansas City in November 2002. The National Museum's interdisciplinary conference on the outlaw in popular culture included film, history, literature, folklore, music, and art. After a welcoming speech by aboriginal representative Mrs. Ruth Bell, keynote speakers, folklorist and cultural historian Graham Seal and Professor Stephen Knight of Cardiff University opened the conference by exploring what is an outlaw hero, and how are they made? Warren Fahey, a prominent Australian folklorist, performer and broadcaster offered lively folk tune serenades celebrating outlaws and national culture. Film events included Ned Kelly (2003) by feature film producer Nelson Woss and Besieged: The Kelly Legacy (2003) by documentary producer and director Gregory Miller. Both of these Australian filmmakers provided a behind-the-scenes look at film productions based on historical, yet legendary subjects. Marilyn Dooley of Screensound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, provided rare silent footage and underscored the problems of preservation efforts facing film archivists. (My visit to the permanent exhibition on the history of Australian broadcasting and film at Screensound offered a comprehensive media study.) Novelist Gary Langford spoke on his fictionalization of the Kelly story, The Adventures of Dreaded Ned (1980). Langford also shares scriptwriting credit for the television movie The Bushrangers (1975). Although Ned Kelly, Australia's preeminent outlaw, loomed large in the presentations, participants also discussed international figures as well. Professor Stephen Knight, British expert on the legend of Robin Hood, outlined the metamorphoses of the leading brand-image in outlaw tradition, tracing the legend's affinity to outlaw stories found in other cultures. Dr. Zhang Ye of the Australian Chinese Times discussed traditional codes and values of the Water Margin Bandits from 12th century China. Barry Carr of Latrobe University examined the cultural interpretations of Pancho Villa in traditional 19th century corridas and 20th century narco-corridos music. Stephen Foster of the Australian National University examined the controversial cinematic representation of Indian Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi. In addition to the outlaw as portrayed in art, history, and media, representatives of the National Museum of Australia, the National Trust (Victoria) and the State Library of Victoria-Ian Coates, Diane Gardiner, and Allison Holland-discussed the difficult problem of avoiding a validation of violence when planning an exhibit featuring criminal subjects. As cultural repositories serving a diverse audience that task requires a difficult balance in presentation. Although officially outlaws, the likes of a Ned Kelly or Phoolan Devi were considered folk heroes to their contemporaries, as well as to the generations who grow up with the embellished legends of these criminals. Because there are more popular culture tales than physical artifacts available, a curator's task becomes even more complicated. all of these are issues that those of us beyond the museum walls may not appreciate. This brief description of some of the many excellent presentations cannot do justice to the diverse 'conversation this conference produced. I'm sure we all departed with new research projects in mind, as well as questions to be sorted out in later reflection. …

Edward Abbey and the Romance of Wilderness

J O H N R. K N O T T University ofMichigan Edward Abbey and the Romance of Wilderness1 At the end of his introduction to TheJourney Home, Edward Abbey comments that if he sounds intransigent it is notjust because he loves an argument, and likes to provoke people, but because he is an extremist, “one who lives and loves by choice far out on the very verge of things, on the edge of the abyss, where this world falls off into the depths of another” (JH, xiv). The image, drawn from the canyon country Abbey made his own, is a particularly revealing one. Anyone who knows Abbey’s writing will recognize one kind of extremism in his assaults on proprieties of any kind he can imagine and his fantasies of subverting the ranchers, developers, dam builders and other enemies ofwilderness whose ways he never tired of ridiculing. Yet the image also suggests another kind of extremism that Abbey recognized in himself, his attrac­ tion to another, more elusive world that he found in the desert land­ scape, a “world beyond”as he often calls it. Abbey represents this world as mysterious, boundless, ultimately unknowable, immensely alluring and at the same time dangerous. I am interested primarily in this kind of extremism and its implications for his writing. As others have observed, Abbey was a romantic despite himself.2 His complicated efforts to deal with what he describes in Desert Solitaireas “that last gallant infirmity of the soul called romance” (273) give his prose a tension and unpredictability that keep his readers off balance and alert.3Abbey frequently suggests the allure and power ofwilderness by appealing to the non-rational and the mysterious, yet he typically undercuts such appeals by offering an ironic gesture or returning abruptly to the concrete, physical world in which he locates himself. One can see the wary self-consciousness that generates this tension in Abbey’s habit of calling his romantic impulses sick, even as he indulges 332 Western American Literature them, as if he can authorize such indulgence only by showing that it is an aberration from the tough rationality with which he confronts the world. When Abbey allowed himself to become more lyrical and intro­ spective in describing his experiences of wilderness, he found ways to signal his awareness of the limitations of his language.4 The most re­ markable thing about Abbey’s portrayal of wilderness, however, is the way he continued to pursue its elusive and undefinable qualities while constructing defenses against the romantic tendencies he recognized in himself, relying upon irony, irreverence, and assertions of fact or ratio­ nality. The most revealing of Abbey’s many reasons for celebrating and defending wilderness, and the most relevant to a discussion of his romanticism, have to do in some waywith transcending limitations. Not all of these reflect the kind of tension I have described. Abbey unproblematically praises wilderness as a place of liberty, both an ex­ hilarating sense of personal freedom of the sort that he experiences as he and Newcomb begin the float through Glen Canyon described in Desert Solitaire and the political freedom his outlaw heroes (Jack Burns, Hayduke) seek and sometimes find there. He embraces the desert as a place that offers possibilities for physical trial and for vision, although he finds seeking visions more problematic than testing himself against the harshness of the country. Abbey can find Eden in this wilderness, in an unspoiled Glen Canyon, and he can imagine a post-urban world in which sand dunes will have buried the cities of the desert Southwest. Both environments offer release from the constraints and oppressions of industrial society and the opportunity to live a more primal kind of existence consistent with what Abbey calls in Down the River “our basic heritage of a million years of hunting, gathering, wandering” (120). Perhaps the deepest appeal of the desert for Abbey was as a place where boundaries are dissolved, those of time as well as those of space. The sense of mystery that he found there had to do with the spare and haunting beauty he perceived but even more with the way the desert seemed to open out...

From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom

To protect their identity and values, Africans enslaved in America transformed various familiar character types to create folk heroes who offered models of behavior both recognizable to them as African people and adaptable to their situation in America. Roberts specifically examines the Afro-American trickster and the trickster tale tradition, the conjurer as folk hero, the biblical heroic tradition, and the badman as outlaw hero.

Also born in the USA: Bob Dylan's outlaw heroes and the real Bob Dylan

(1988). Also born in the USA: Bob Dylan's outlaw heroes and the real Bob Dylan. Popular Music and Society: Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 37-43.

Dylan's biographical rhetoric and the myth of the outlaw‐hero

This essay extends the literature on the rhetoric of music, specifically the rhetorical potential of Bob Dylan's songs. The paper focuses on Dylan's biographical songs, a genre largely overlooked by scholars. In the lyrics of these songs Dylan promotes the myth of the outlaw‐hero and offers powerful cultural criticism by appealing to three ethical traits: resistance to corrupt authority, integrity of the self, and simplicity. We contend that Dylan's use of the myth of the outlaw hero builds his own ethos as an outsider loyal to American cultural systems who successfully criticizes our culture. We show how Dylan's use of biographical rhetoric defines a social context with appeal to the vast audience attracted to his work.

Clenched Teeth and Curses: Revenge and the Dime Novel Outlaw Hero

The Journal of Popular CultureVolume VII, Issue 3 p. 652-666 In-Depth: The Popular Western Clenched Teeth and Curses: Revenge and the Dime Novel Outlaw Hero Daryl E. Jones, Daryl E. JonesSearch for more papers by this author Daryl E. Jones, Daryl E. JonesSearch for more papers by this author First published: Winter 1973 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1973.0703_652.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature VolumeVII, Issue3Winter 1973Pages 652-666 RelatedInformation