Western Myth Corrupted, or the Trickster Masquerading as Town Marshal: Grotesquerie and Archetypal Criticism in Modern America
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[1] Campbell University
Campbell University
Township of Neills Creek, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Southern communication journal, ISSN 1041-794X, Vol. 89, nº 5, 2024, págs. 293-308
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Western myth remains a descriptive mechanism in and for American society and a useful rhetorical approach in archetypal criticism. Popularized in communication study by Janice Hocker Rushing’s seminal criticism “The Rhetoric of the American Western Myth” (1983), the resilience of the myth’s tension between individuality and community continues to resonate in American society over 40 years later. Using Rushing’s original analysis of the Western genre and the historical antecedents she applies, we trace the evolution of the application of Western myth in American culture and politics to the present day. Rushing argued the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan represented a pseudo-synthesis of the myth’s opposites; we assert current application of the myth also results in a new form of pseudo-synthesis – this time with the confounding appearance of the rhetorical trickster in the role of “town marshal”. As in Reagan’s time, we must strive to restore the individual/community tension inherent in Western myth for it to remain a guiding influence.
