INTRODUCTION: Owen Wister - Poet of the West

Student Handout


While The Virginian has been often called the first great novel of the American West, it did not spring from thin air. Writing at the end of the 19th Century, Owen Wister had a plethora of material from which to draw: dime novels, travel narratives, and the short stories of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. These earlier texts contain many of the plot elements that Wister would use, some of the same two-dimensional characters, and nearly all the "local color" -the casually rough tone of Western literature in which violence and sentiment often appear adjacent to each other.

What distinguishes the novel is its main character. In The Virginian, Wister created a man of great-but seemingly paradoxical-qualities. The Virginian is much more than a single man; he is the very incarnation of the American spirit. He is usually quiet, but this man of few words speaks volumes in the languages of gesture and of action. While upstanding, he knows the limits of the law in the frontier towns of the West. The very icon of "rugged individualism," he is still the very best defender of friends, of family and even of the community.

It is no wonder that Gary Cooper took on the role of the Virginian in 1929; Wister's character is the classic hero that not only influenced all the westerns to follow, but also set the stage for the many films that adapted the western character to the mean streets of urban America. James Garner started out as the Maverick and ended up Rockford; Clint Eastwood made his way from the Plains to San Francisco where he played Dirty Harry. Harrison Ford plays drag racers, cowboys, Han Solo, and the American President with the same cool aplomb. And the list goes on. They are all, in each of their roles, channeling the spirit of the Virginian. And too one sees the cult of cool that pervades our land, as the young-especially the young men-try their hand at playing the part.

Wister's story, however, displays a sophistication that his later imitators rarely achieve. While from their very first appearances, we have no doubt that the Virginian and the Judge wear the white hats in this story, and Trampas and Balaam wear the black hats, Wister allows Steve to move from one camp to the other--without a dramatic change in his character. Wister seems to recognize that in the frontier, the line between good and evil is thin, that men of action may well find themselves on the wrong side of the law without much thought, or even a change of heart.

But that does not stop his title character from passing judgement upon Steve; nor does it stop him from executing what he believes to be the proper punishment for Steve's crimes. Despite his assurance in principle, however, the Virginian feels--feels profoundly--for his wayward friend. The depth of emotional ambivalence he experiences is rare in popular entertainment, but it may be what constitutes Wister's novel as great art.


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