Reactions to Murder in The Surrounded

A very striking scene in the final few pages of the novel, The Surrounded, was the death of Sheriff Quigley. This scene contrasts greatly with the deaths of Louis and the warden, both of whom were killed quickly, as if their deaths were barely noticed. Louis’s death is glimpsed over, only describing the shot being heard before his body falls to the ground. The warden is also killed in a quiet, swift motion with a hatchet. The reaction that Archilde has is one of shock and amazement. He is confused as to how his mother could have acted so quietly, but immediately thinks of where to bury the bodies to keep from being seen by others. Archilde, after witnessing such a terrible event, acts reasonably, trying to think of ways to cover their tracks to not be accused of murder. Archilde must also console his mother, who is mourning the loss of her son. This contrasts with his reaction of Elise killing Sheriff Quigley. He notices that Elise is acting differently, as if she is about to do something. He watches her move towards the sheriff and kill him with three shots to the chest. Unlike the murder of the warden, Elise has planned out the sheriff’s death, vowing to kill him if he ever tried to take Archilde away from her. She is so determined, that after firing the first three shots, Archilde has to stop her “from emptying the magazine” into Sheriff Quigley (295). Afterwards, neither Archilde nor Elise act rationally, but simply act as though nothing has happened. They continue to discuss the plans of running away together, barely mentioning that the sheriff is now dead. During their conversation, Archilde is described as trembling but Elise is “unshaken” and speaking calmly.

Archilde's Inability To Kill

An obvious underlying theme of McNickle’s, The Surrounded, deals with Archilde’s confused self-identity and internal struggle with White and Indian cultural influences. The scene we spoke about in class in which Archilde is unable to pull the trigger and shoot the buck contrasts the gruesome situation that occurs a few pages later. The warden does not hesitate to shoot Louis and expresses little remorse as he approaches his dying victim. Suddenly, Archilde’s mother strikes down the warden with a hatchet as he stands over Louis. McNickle uses the emphasizes murder in this scene to juxtapose Archilde’s failure to kill the buck with the warden and mother’s ability to kill. Archilde’s struggle to identify solely with either the White or Indian culture throughout the novel is clearly represented by this struggle to kill the buck. Archilde’s mother moves swiftly to kill the warden in retaliation for Louis’ death just as the warden does not hesitate to shoot Louis. The warden and Archilde's mother represent White culture and Indian culture having a similar ability and tendency to kill when necessary. Archilde though, on the other hand, is incapable of shooting the buck because he sees that “lying in wait and killing, when no one’s living depended on it, there was no excitement in that” (121). McNickle uses these scenes and the element of killing to highlight Archilde as a character that cannot really identify with either culture (the warden or his mother). He finds himself somewhere between both the White and the Indian ways of life as he cannot find any ability within himself to kill.

Miscommunication in The Surrounded

One of the scenes that struck me from today’s reading was the scene with George Moser, specifically the passages on pages 26 and 29.  Max and George’s interpretations of the same conversation are so drastically different that it made me think about our discussion of language in All the Pretty Horses.  We had talked about how Perez told Rawlins and John Grady that they did not speak the language, despite the fact that they knew Spanish.  Perez meant that they did not understand the language of prison.  In the scene with George Moser, it appears that George and Max are speaking different languages.  Max dislikes George because he feels that everyone is in debt to the man, and consequently, he is very wealthy.  Max also points out that physically, it is clear that George does not do manual labor to earn his money.  It seems like these are the main reasons that Max “despises” George.  However, when we get narration from George’s point of view, we see that he is having trouble with his business and with his wife as well.  He is clearly not as well off as Max had thought.  George also mentions that he did not understand how Max could have been offended by what he said, and in fact, he had been trying to be especially nice.  As we move forward in the novel, it will be interesting to see how these rifts between individuals develop.  This problem of miscommunication, or lack of a common ‘language’ seems to be significant.

Rango and the Mythology of the West

In this class we have struggled to identify how one claims ownership of the West. Rango raises an interesting options, that to belong in the West one must engage in its mythology and its mythological properties, similar to the way John Grady created his own identity and thereby gained access and legitimacy in the West with his heroic feat of horse breaking. Rango arrives in the town as a stranger with no identity and yet he is able to forge one out of the lies he tell the towns folk of his heroic deeds. He is accepted by the community because he has the resume, his outfit and gear don't necessarily matter the way the would in All the Pretty Horses as with Blevins, because the people buy into his story, into his mythology. This idea that appearances aren't as important to being a "westerner" as what you do and how you act are reinforced in Rango's constantly changing attire which goes through several different and even comical iterations. As Rango begins to rack up actual credentials, ie. killing the hawk and tracking the prairie dogs, we see him gain even more support from the townsfolk. However, the importance of the myth still supersedes this as the town immediately turns on him, in spite of his deeds, when he is exposed as a fraud by Jake the Snake. The cameo by Clint Eastwood's Man-With-No-Name seems to solidify this idea, as he even tells Rango "the deeds make the man" and "no one can walk out on their own story." Rango buys into this and goes back to face Jake in a true Western showdown, similar to the one that was cut short by the return of the hawk when Rango first entered town and his legitimacy was first challenged in the bar by the Gila Monster. His triumph over Jake and the Mayor, apart from the fact that it literally saves the West, cements his spot in Western mythology and thereby makes him above repute in the West as Jake acknowledges as a true western "legend". The little rat girl hugging him and accepting him at last saying "wow you really are a hero" is the final blow to the head that hammers this point home.

Firefly & Ethics in the West

The question of ethics in the West was raised in my mind after watching "The Train Job" and reading the critical piece by Mark Eaton on McCarthy. Eaton notes that "what constitutes ethical behavior in the violent world of the West" is a tenet in McCarthy's novels, including All the Pretty Horses. There are characters in All the Pretty Horses that are rather ambiguous and clouded in terms of what kind of a person they are: the Captain and Pérez are never explicitly pegged by McCarthy as good or evil. Similarly, in "The Train Job," Mal (whose name literally means 'bad' in Latin) has no scruples in completing a heist for a less-than-savory character by shady means; that is, until he finds out that he has been paid to rob badly-needed medicine. Additionally, he is sheltering River, who is being hunted by the Alliance. When he is asked why he took in River and her brother, Simon, Mal shrugs and says "Because it's the right thing to do."
Mal is by no means a do-gooder bent on saving the helpless. He and his crew are amongst the border planets and are just trying to get by, much like John Grady and Rawlins originally set out to do. Like Grady, the crew of Serenity want work. They have no problem accepting a job to steal from a train. As mentioned earlier, the problem arises when ethics come into play. Mal immediately seeks to return the stolen medicine even though he is being paid a hefty sum to steal it. Like the West in Mexico in All the Pretty Horses, the final frontier and the people who inhabit it make their own justice based on their own  sense of ethics and moral qualms. McCarthy never seeks to define what is good or bad because good or bad does not exist in the West. While the Alliance may be initially labelled as the bad guys because of the horrible effects they had on River, that structured government has no real hold over the border planets.

Is There Even a Cohesive West?

While we were discussing the identity of the West, I thought maybe there possibly is not this one, universal Western culture that many people tend to believe. From the Ox Bow Incident and All the Pretty Horses, we see they are all set in the West, regardless of whether it was in the Continental US or in Mexico. One thing I tend to forget is the vast expansion of territory the West covers. This leads me to believe that the West is not tamed to the strict territorial boundaries but more of it as separate pockets of societies that are scattered all over the West that are not united nor share common traits that define the "idealized" West. The West could not be this melting pot or crossroads where cultures from different parts of America (Mexico and US) but rather a "salad bowl" where things do not mix at all. This salad bowl would resemble the different societies scattered in the Western frontier, where each society has its own set of value hierarchies that conflict with others. In the Ox Bow Incident, the town where everything begins can be seen as an attempted civilized order, where society values justice and order, settled by Northern thought. In All the Pretty Horses, the town John Grady comes from is in a changing from a cow-boy and ranch accustomed society to one that is slowly modernizing with the advent of industrialization. The ranch is seen as a desperate attempt to keep what the romanticized West is known for, emphasizing hard work, horsemanship, and nobility are the most important values. The prison and the mountain pass (Ox-Bow Incident) are seen as this lawless, almost primitive area where mob rule and violence are seem as superior. The fact that there are so many of these pockets of civilization with vastly different values hint at the possibility that the West is not unified nor is there some sort of cohesion in the lands. Ultimately this disconnect between all societies can imply that the West as a unified, rugged land that needs to be conquered is man's falsified illusion of the West. It is something that people tell themselves in order to hide the harsh realities of what the West actually is. I think this can still be seen today as different areas of what the West used to be is heavily dominated by certain cultures, from Tex-Mex, South-West, California's West, etc.