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Under Construction for Fall 2009
The Basic Premise:
The lone paladin of the American mythic landscape is a
compelling figure whose hold on the American imagination
endures, whether in classic treatments like the novel and
subsequent movie Shane to the contemporary private eye
novels of Robert B. Parker.
The archetypes of these stories—Sam Spade and Philip
Marlowe—were born in the wake of the Depression. They
feature a social landscape where “respectable” society and
the forces of law and order are incompetent or corrupt or
simply unwilling to tackle tough problems. It is up to rugged
individuals, people on the fringes of society, to come to the
rescue.
The fictional heroes of contemporary American mystery fiction
consistently display relatively uniform characteristics:
- The hero is an individual fighter, struggling alone (or
virtually so) against impressive, almost overwhelming
odds. The frontiersman, the cowboy, the private eye,
the policeman, the secret agent are all examples of the
American hero.
- The weapons they use are also relatively simple ones--
the flintlock rifle of the Minuteman, the cowboy’s six-
gun, etc. This relates to the fact that our heroes are
typically solo operators, and complex weapons typically
require equally complex social units to operate. The
fact that these weapons are individually controlled also
means that the American hero must be highly
competent, skilled, and resourceful--a rugged
individual. But in another way, the simplicity of the
weapons also relates directly to another characteristic
of this role.
- The hero is a moral agent. It is not simply his or her
independence and skill that is important. What is
ultimately of significance is that he temporarily
surrenders his independence and places his skill in the
service of others. The American hero can become
heroic only to the extent that his struggle becomes
enmeshed with the struggle of others. Here we have an
echoing of the classic tension in American culture
between the celebration of the individual and the claims
of the community.
These stories have enduring popularity not simply due to the
skill of the authors who write them, but because they address
significant issues in American life: how the individual copes
with injustice, disappointment and danger in an insecure
world.
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