The literature of the American West ranges from lowbrow entertainment to great works of fiction. The extremes are obvious enough, but the middle tends to blur. The dime-store Western never aspired to be anything but entertainment. James Fenimore Cooper and Willa Cather, however, used themes of westward expansion in works clearly intended as highbrow literature. The novels of modern writer Larry McMurtry broke new ground: He took the Western and created a great piece of fiction, without changing its fundamental genre appeal or its accessibility to the general reader.

As an example of his retooling of the Western genre, consider McMurtry's themes. While the Western myth is fundamentally about resettlement to new lands. McMurtry's novels combine elements of the Western myth with less traditional motifs: profound reluctance to face change, conflict between urbanization and the Western ideal, the importance of place, and the role of the land itself. While the traditional Western is rooted in the past, McMurtry's themes combine nostalgia for that past with a sense of emptiness in the present and hopelessness for the future.

Or consider McMurtry's treatment of character. The traditional Western formula depicts mainly masculine characters and portrays them as both heroic and human. In his novels, McMurtry creates strong female characters, transmuting the conventional plot of the trials and dangers of the frontier by folding in deeper ideological insights. Critics rightly credit his novels with reshaping the Western genre, praising his work and its meticulous attention to the Western mise en scene as a subversive but sincere tribute to the American West.

Select the sentence that shows the author’s view of McMurtry’s treatment of gender.






The author refers to James Fenimore Cooper and Willa Cather in order to suggest

A. that their works are examples of entertaining literature
B. that their literary achievements were no less impressive than those of McMurtry
C. that the themes of the Western genre could be employed in literature meant to appeal to a more sophisticated reader
D. that they were contemporaries of McMurtry
E. that the theme of westward expansion was a multicultural concept



Consider each of the following answer choices separately and select all that apply.

According to the passage, the ideological undertones in McMurtry’s novels stem from the

A. introduction of strong female characters
B. portrayal of the dangerous nature of the Western frontier
C. subversive nature of the writing



It can be inferred that the author regards McMurtry’s treatment of character with

A. regret because McMurtry did not adhere to Western novelistic conventions
B. concern that the characterizations altered the nature of the Western formula
C. approval for the manner in which their inclusion transformed the Western genre
D. puzzlement, because the characters seem insignificant to the plot
E. enthusiasm, because the characters reform the conventionality of Western plots