Faith Klijian
Professor Keeler
WR39 B
11 March 2022
Annotated Bibliography
Campion, Jane G., director. The Power of the Dog. 2021.
Jane Campion is the director and producer of the well-renowned film, The Power of the Dog. The film is based upon the novel of the same name, and the Western Drama shares the haunting story of toxic masculinity and sexuality of the primary character, Phil Burbank (portrayed by the actor, Benedict Cumberbatch), as well as the ultimate destruction of his character towards the ending of the film. I utilized this source for my RIP Project, which had been in the form of an entertainment news website that reviewed the film and persuaded my audience to see the movie. The review teaches my audience about Westerns and Neo-Westerns, and teaches them how the movie I reviewed is classified as a Neo-Western. I analyzed the four main characters of the film, and spoke of the stereotypes individuals often hear about Westerns (all the while confirming if those rumors are entirely true or not).
Cooper, Lydia R. “He's a Psychopathic Killer, but So What?”: Folklore and Morality in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men.” Semantics Scholar, 2009.
Customary author, Lydia Cooper, writes a scholarly journal titled, “He's a Psychopathic Killer, but So What?”: Folklore and Morality in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men.” While reviewing and hyper-examining the novel, No Country for Old Men, Cooper mainly points out one of the primary characters, Anton Chigurh. Chigurh is the main villain of the story, however, he does have his own set of twisted morals. She shares how he kills individuals without compassion or any sort of remorse for them, but he always commits to the act with deliberation. He never kills without a purpose, although, his reasonings behind them are regularly selfish towards himself. She contrasts his character to the additional main character and “hero” of the film, Lwellyn Moss, further juxtaposing their personalized ideals.
Eason, Kat. The Anteater's Guide to Writing and Rhetoric. Hayden-McNeil Pub., 2010.
The Anteater’s Guide to Writing and Rhetoric, written by Kat Eason, is applied as a training tool in writing courses at the school of University of California, Irvine, which allows for students to educate themselves in basic skills for writing and discipline. It teaches students as they go along in a course, and is composed of a sequence of chapters that enable these individuals to succeed as writers. Kat Eason is a credible professor of English in the School of Humanities at UC Irvine, and her research interests include rhetoric and speculative fiction, opening the eyes of students as they trickle into her classes each year and makes them open to a whole other point of view of writing and creating literary works.
Leonard, Elmore. Fire in the Hole. Contentville Press, 2001.
Elmore Leonard was an American writer and novelist who primarily centered several of his stories on the Western genre. The medium of his work was a book, and the book was originally published with the title, When the Women Came Out to Dance. However, it was changed to the name it has today. The plot regards the character, U.S. Marshal Raylan, as he goes back to his old coal-mining community to purse Boyd Crowder, a white supremacist income tax eluder who has the intentions of bombing an IRS building. This book is strong in differentiating from other Western works. For instance, it takes on a more Neo-Western approach, rather than a typical Western, since it incorporates more modern and late-contemporary aspects, like a mystery plot and an industrial setting. The message speaks about the fact that there is no “good” or “bad” in society (Raylan is morally gray - he is not completely good nor evil). This source aids in making the argument of how many new composition works are weaving in the Neo-Western genre more often than they are Western, in order to appeal to the younger audiences and quickly intrigue them.
McCarthy, Cormac. No Country for Old Men. Vintage, 2006.
Cormac McCarthy is an American writer who is very renowned for his novels, plays, screenplays, and more. He principally composes Western works, and one of his most successful pieces is the book, No Country for Old Men. This book displays various Neo-Western features and focuses on the story of Llewellyn Moss and Anton Chigurh, two of the main characters. The novel dictates the story of how there is a great internal conflict with humans in how they define their morality and their ethics. It involves a drug deal gone awry and ending up in the hands of someone who was not meant to have it, and a murderous man chasing him through the U.S./Mexican Border. This source is strong in the information it illustrates, as much of the story can be used as evidence and simply represent the good and bad of the world, as well as how it contains several Neo-Western aspects.
Munden, Kenneth J. A Contribution to the Psychological Understanding of the Origin of the Cowboy and His Myth. Vol. 15, Leavenworth Times, 1885.
Kenneth J. Munden is an author who is well-educated about the classic Western genre and knows much about traditional cowboys and the like. In this journal, he speaks to notify his audience what real cowboys generally go through, as well as what their responsibilities are. This article holds strengths like organization and evidence, as it utilizes secondary sources to further emphasize his points. By using this source, I can contradict how one of the characters I am writing about, Llewellyn Moss, is not a typical cowboy because he does not contain many of the characteristics this journal portrays.
Proulx, Annie. Brokeback Mountain. The New Yorker, 1997.
The book, Brokeback Mountain, tells the great, romantic tale of two young men, Ennis and Jack, who are both sent to work as sheep herders, and soon and slowly as the novel goes on, proceed to fall for one another. Their relationship turns into a large love affair, full of both lust and complications. This novel is of the Western genre, and I use it to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between Westerns and Neo-Westerns, as well as to relate and connect it back to the film I reviewed for my RIP Project, The Power of the Dog.