Anonymity in The Ox Bow Incident

When Art lights a cigarette during the stakeout on pages 133-135, the novel offers us a look into what the code of masculinity is like in practice.  The men are positioned throughout the woods ready to catch the rustlers.  Art and several of the other men who are bored, or anxious, or for whatever reason distracted from the lynching at hand, decide to smoke.  There is the nice image of the way the small flame lights up the smoker’s face.  Smoking could compromise the ambush, but it also shows that, subconsciously, the man smoking is not 100% invested in the ambush.  If he is giving away their positions with the light, than he either must not care about the success of the plan, or he is too anxious or distracted to realize it is a problem.  The code of masculinity comes into play when Art is reprimanded for his actions by an unknown speaker.  He could be Winder, or Bartlett, or any of the other men from town.  This man is the “ideal man” who has a gun, and enforces the rules of the mob.  He calls Art a “lily” as a way to emasculate him, by extension saying that the smokers are weak, and that those waiting patiently in the dark are powerful (134).  The speaker draws some of his power from the fact that he can hide in anonymity, and claim the power of the group because he is not singled out.  However, because Art is illuminated, he is a target.  We see the same thing when Risley meets the men on page 211.  He offers them a “way out” by pretending he could not identify them.  If he doesn’t give names, then the men involved with the lynching can ignore their guilt and save their reputations.  Thus it appears that being the ultimate manly man does not just require manly actions, it requires assimilation and compliance, to be part of a group rather than an individual.  That way, no one can single out vulnerabilities or weaknesses that could get you run out of town, or killed.