Secrecy, Suspicion, Exposure: Negotiating Authority Structures in a Settler Colonial Society as Depicted in Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident
The article discusses the ways in which Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 1940 novel The Ox-Bow Incident problematizes the issues of secrecy, suspicion, gossip and exposure as a basis for the depiction of a variety of regulatory practices in a hierarchized settler society whose structures of authority ente...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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European Association for American Studies
2021-01-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/16518 |
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| Summary: | The article discusses the ways in which Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 1940 novel The Ox-Bow Incident problematizes the issues of secrecy, suspicion, gossip and exposure as a basis for the depiction of a variety of regulatory practices in a hierarchized settler society whose structures of authority enter a phase of renegotiation. The novel can be read as a portrayal of the Far West’s transition toward a more egalitarian and modern social organization. Clark depicts a stratified society in which striving for a form of advancement is a shared necessity that powerfully influences individual mindsets, and this tendency can redefine even the entrenched hierarchies. Secrecy and suspicion exemplify the tactics through which individual interests fuel a larger process of the renegotiation of power relations within the settler collective. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-9336 |