The West Rules with an Iron Fist
In this novel, E.L. Docotorow tells how the town of Hard Times in the Dakota Territory earned its name. Though the overall desperation seems to be exaggerated, by reading this novel one begins to see the fantasy behind the Hollywood version of the American West. Welcome to Hard Times provides readers with a picture of what kind of hardscrabble existence the western settlers actually endured, as opposed to the sanitized images Hollywood has provided us. In the first scene of the novel, the reader witnesses the Bad Man from Bodie rape, vandalize and burn an entire town. Through these events, the reader comes to truly understand the nature of this era. When Doctorow's narrator, Blue, surmises, "Bad Men from Bodie weren't ordinary scoundrels, they came with the land, and you could no more cope with them than you could with dust or hailstones . . .expectations wore away with the weather" the author reveals the desperation that exists in the Dakota Territory (Doctorow 7). Withou!t the grueling landscape descriptions and the Bad Man from Bodie, the characters in this novel would not have the degree of emotion that they do, moreover; the novel would not succeed as an attack on the fairy tale image of the West. From the onset of th
The end of this novel shows the reader that the people of the American West did not determine their own fate. The men and the women alike deal with hardships, incomprehensible by today's standards. Yet, in the end, the land owns their lives. Because the land is rough, the characters have to choose to overcome the obstacles or become victims to them. In a twist of events, the town perishes and the Bad Man from Bodie returns. The narrator echoes these sentiments when he says, "There is no fool like a fool in the West . We see the land described in harsh terms during the toughest times for the characters. In Welcome to Hard Times the land dictates all that occurs. To survive, these characters must develop a drive to succeed, or else, live their lives in constant fear and hopelessness. The fear that they hold emerges in the line, "Colt gave every man a gun, but you have to squeeze the trigger for yourself"(32). Consequently, while attempting to defeat the Bad Man, these characters destroy the things that mean the most to them. Doctorow's characters spend their lives fighting the land, but in the end, the land reigns as victor, thus dispelling the myth of the American West. The memory of being molested and left to die in the saloon fire nurtures the grudge that Molly holds for the Bad Man from Bodie and the land that bore him. Prosperity seems to lighten the mood of these characters.
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Acceptance Essays
