Bones of the Cliff City.

In The Professor's House, the meat of the novel revolves around the story of Tom Outland and his excavation of the Cliff City. In looking at it, I believer this section fits in really well with the West we have been talking about this semester. Most of the West we have seen haas been a west where the stereotypical cowboy culture is dead or dying off. In Outland's adventure, we physical see that in the remains of the native americans. These bones represent the people of that stereotypical land, and even furthermore the people who came before the stereotypes. Upon finding the bones Tom recognizes their importance to the land and wants to leave them, as if they exist as a sign of the times. However, the bones end up being used for a material gain. Turning something organic and of the land into a material gain is a large overarching theme of western expansion. Turning bones into a gain shows that nothing is sacred or off limits, and that people now will even look to profit from death.