Buffalo Bill And Deadwood Dick Essay Example For Students

Buffalo Bill And Deadwood Dick Essay I Cant Hear a Damn Word Youre Saying Those who deprecate the free supply of such ficticious works as the public demands, are generally in favor of the entire exclusion of fiction of a sensational cast, a course which will unavoidably result in alienating from the library the very class most needing its beneficial influence' Denning, 49. It is obvious here that William Fletcher attached more significance and importance to dime novels than most serious intellectuals did in the late 1800s. In fact, most people, particularly in the middle class, thought dime novels were vulgar and that they caused young children to imitate the actions of the likes of Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick. But both the production and the popularity of dime novels especially among the working class suggest that something more profound than cheap entertainment compelled them to read these works of fiction. Contrary to what many literary scholars and those in the middle class believedand perhaps as indicated by the various reactions to them, these plotlines and characters were appealing to the working class on more than just one level. The rate at which dime novels were produced is astounding. William Wallace Cook began by receiving a title and synopsis for a serial, and would then write, adapt and revise installments to meet the ever-changing specifications of the publisher. Almost all the accounts tell the story of novels written at exceptional speed in marathon sessions, and all emphasize the sheer quantity of writing Denning, 21. It was not uncommon for authors to write entire pieces in one week or less, some not bothering to edit their work. Many admitted that their motivation for writing stories at such a pace was money, but most maintained that the material contained in their stories was not immoral or vulgar, but rather, useful. It is interesting to note here that, while the adverse reaction against dime novels eventually became a reflection of the class that was supposedly reading them, the authors themselves were not from the working class. In fact, the dime novel was a commercial product of a burgeoning industry employing relatively educated professionalswriters who also worked as journalists, teachers, or clerks 45. The judgments passed on those reading the dime novels was limited to the working class; but the very material that was thought to be immoral was invented in the minds of middle class people. In addition, while the working class may have been the target audience, perhaps in an attempt to redefine class boundaries, in actuality, the population of dime novel readers transcended those very boundaries. The action- and romance-packed stories appealed to all: men, women, children, both young and old. For people such as bankers and capitalists, dime novels served as more of a distraction from the North/South divide that the country was actually experiencing Reading the West, 32 If the popularity of these novels was so widespread, even extending into middle-class interests, one must wonder why the reaction by literary critics and other middle-class people was so strong, and at times, excessive. Critics were unsure of how dime novels would impact the working class readers and what action, if any, they might provoke. Either they were a narcotic escape from daily life with no genuine symbolic meaning or, with Comstock, a symbolic universe so potents as to erase the real world from the minds of readers, leading them to act out the scenes depicted in dime novels 54. Anthony Comstock was the leader of these latter believers, calling editors of such fiction Satans efficient agents who would ultimately destroy the young Denning, 51. He eventually began arresting people who sold these novels or those who allowed children under sixteen years of age to have access to dime novels. Analysis of short stories "A Rose for Emily" and "A House of Flesh" EssayWhen he killed others, it was only because his life or someones close to him was immediately in danger; the reasons were always very personal and never frivolous. In addition, regardless of his pursuits, it was clear that Buffalo Bill always kept his mother and family in mind. These indications were always at the end of each chapter, where the main character would ride home and pay off the mortgage or buy food for his hungry family. The best of the story papers,' notes W. H. Bishop, reward virtue and punish vice. Their dependence upon the family keeps them, as a rule, free of dangerous appeals to the lower passions' 53. Perhaps for women dime novels disrupted the norm a bit more than those stories targeted at young boys. In stories such as Buffalo Bills, women were protected, one might say respected, but their ability to fight and to be successful on the frontier was never actualized, because it was never women who fought, only men dressed as women. Novels such as The Hidden Hand and Willful Gaynell presented images of women opposite those in which they were seen in real life. These stories were a reflection of the emergence of the working girl, Capitola unable to find work as a girl and Gaynell as a headstrong factory girl. In the first, Capitola dresses as a boy reversing traditional gender switches in order to get a job. One circumstance he had particularly remarked, notes the author of The Hidden Hand, E. D. E. N. Southworth, the language used by the poor child during her examination was much superior to the slang she had previously affected, to support her assumed character of newsboy 41. What is implied here is that girls were more articulate and perhaps more learned than boys. More importantly, this gender switching reaffirmed that gender is often performance and not entirely natural, and that women could do men just as successfully as men could do women. Dime novels were never as morally contaminating as the middle class suspected they would be. One might even argue that their anticipated explosive effect was, in fact, a creation of the middle class and may have not been as disruptive had this class not expressed such disgust and concern. This reaction seems to be indicative of the fact that dime novels provided more for the working class than merely cheap entertainment although that was just as important. Their production, circulationa and the reaction they provoked all contributed to what we might call the Dime Novel Scare of the late 1800s. And while the fiction stories created an excitement in the working class, a sense that there was potential in their own lives to be like the characters they read about, they did not cause a mass alliance of and rebellion by the working class. What they did was allow the working class to see dime novels as an arena much like the one they lived in, one that saw class struggles and the introduction of the potential of both men and women, regardless of class.