ColonisationPilgrims & PuritansManifest DestinyThe FrontierThe American DreamSlavery,1. Some Key Points,Seeking the true religion, the Puritans fled England and in America attempted to create a nation of saints or the “City Upon A Hill”, an intensely religious, thoroughly righteous community designed to be an example for all of Europe.,Manifest Destiny is the historical belief that the United States was destined and divinely ordained by the Christian God to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean.,The Frontier was the term applied by scholars to the impact of the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Europeans. That is, as pioneers moved into the frontier zone they were changed significantly by the encounter.,The American Dream is the freedom that allows all citizens and most residents of the United States to pursue their goals in life through hard work and free choice.,2. KEY POINTS,James Fenimore Cooper created a character in his books called Hawkeye. He is the mythic hero, the true democrat who, because he is (as D. H. Lawrence has described him) a saint with a gun, will right wrongs and avoid evils when possible.This character becomes the pattern for the mythic western hero, the cowboy, the frontiersman, the hero of so many cowboy movies and TV shows.He is a vital part of American mythology and American culture.,American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s emphasize the values of honour and sacrifice. Westerns from the 1960s and 1970s often have a more pessimistic view, glorifying a rebellious anti-hero and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality of the American West.,When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a staple of small-screen entertainment. A great many B-movie Westerns were aired on TV as time fillers, while a number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right.,James Fenimore Cooper has rightly been called the first American novelist.,In his Leatherstocking Tales, Cooper writes chiefly about conflict man against man, and man against environment, but both are significantly American in setting.,Throughout the novels is the looming fact that man is coping with the frontier, trying to conquer, tame, and possess it; it is this, in fact, which leads to the obvious conflicts of man versus man.,The most important character in these novels is Hawkeye. This character becomes the pattern for the mythic western hero, the cowboy, the frontiersman, the hero of so many cowboy movies and TV shows.He is a vital part of American mythology and American culture.,The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West or Wild West.,THE WESTERN,American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s emphasize the values of honour and sacrifice. Westerns from the 1960s and 1970s often have a more pessimistic view, glorifying a rebellious anti-hero and highlighting the cynicism, brutality and inequality of the American West.,The popular perception of the Western is a story that centres on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter.,Themes,The Western usually tells a simple morality tale, usually set against the spectacular scenery of the American West. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape.,Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West: it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), girls (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.,Often, the vast landscape becomes more than a vivid backdrop; it becomes a character in the film. John Ford perhaps the most famous director of Western movies - used Monument Valley in Arizona as an expressive landscape in films like Stagecoach (1939).,The films often depict conflicts with Native Americans. Other recurring themes of Westerns include Western treks and groups of bandits terrorising small towns such as in The Magnificent Seven.,High Noon is a film that tells the story of a town marshal who is forced to face a gang of killers by himself.,When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a basic ingredient of small-screen entertainment. Notable TV Westerns include Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, Laramie, Rawhide, Bonanza, The Virginian, Wagon Train, The Big Valley, Maverick, The High Chaparral, and many others.,TV WESTERNS,The Lone Ranger is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever American Indian sidekick called Tonto, and his horse Silver.,