Cities of the Plain: The End of the All-American Cowboys
Abstract
This article analyzes Cormac McCarthy’s Cities of the Plain
(1998), the last installment of The Border Trilogy, and scrutinizes his
portraits of cowboy masculinity. Not only does the article consider
the way McCarthy deals with wounded masculinity and the adult
Western genre in the novel, but it also discusses how the protagonists,
John Grady and Billy, end their illusions concerning their cowboy
masculinity, as each comes to terms with the fact that the cowboy
lifestyle is based on a myth, and that there are no more frontiers in the
world for would-be cowboys to ride. McCarthy’s cowboy protagonists
must negotiate a West that is no longer the province of the cowboy
in the millennium, but rather the site of twentieth-century military
installations, large corporate ranches, and frightening modern-day
bureaucracies. The key to survival in this vexed post-West world turns
out to be not adherence to the old regional myths and conventions—
no matter how attractive that might seem—but instead, a turn towards
healthier masculinities. While the cowboys’ epic journeys may evoke
a noble and masculine western tradition, as McCarthy illustrates, they
are doomed to fail because of the upheaval and displacement of the
community and culture in which such masculinities thrived.
Keywords
Western, Cowboy Masculinity, Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain, Myth of the West
References
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