Justice Doers: the Vigilante As a Mythic Figure and Its Role in Creating a More Violent Culture in America
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Justice Doers: The Vigilante as a Mythic Figure and its Role in Creating a More Violent Culture in America A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Humanities, York University, Toronto, Ontario January 2021 © Erik Mortensen, 2021 II Abstract This dissertation builds off the work of Richard Slotkin in examining the relationship between myth-making and violence in American culture. The specific myth this dissertation focuses on is the myth of the vigilante hero and its role in creating a more violent culture in America. The vigilante is a unique American term and figure, and while the figure has been connected to the myth of the American frontier, it has not been recognized as a mythic figure in its own right. This dissertation defines, outlines, and demonstrates the origin of myth of the vigilante hero; it then proceeds to examine how the myth gained cultural power through replication and revisions. The dissertation argues that a vigilante cannot be understood outside of a narrative that the figure is placed within. It is the narrative pattern and formula for the vigilante that creates the myth of the vigilante hero. This narrative formula begins in historical and news narratives about vigilantes, but over time is widened into fictional narratives across diverse media forms. The narrative formula also allows for any political and cultural position, such as class, ethnicity, and gender, to be mapped into the myth. This will legitimate the vigilante figure as a hero, and in turn legitimate their extra-legal violent tactics. As a result, any violent actors pursuing their sense of justice can be made into heroes and have their violence legitimated once mapped into the myth. Therefore, this myth creates an unending cycle of violence in the culture so long as it is not being critically engaged, deconstructed, and exposed. III Dedication This work is dedicated to my parents, Dave and Jean Mortensen, for all their support and encouragement through the whole of my schooling. You made me believe I could accomplish what no one in our family has done before, and now I have. IV Acknowledgements There are a number of people I would like to thank who have helped make this work come to pass. First, I would like to thank Dr. Art Redding. You have been a fantastic supervisor and I have learned so much from you. You have encouraged and helped me with this project from before I was accepted to the PhD program at York. It has been a privilege to be your student, and to have you as a mentor. I would also thank Dr. Sara Horowitz, Dr. Victor Shea, and Dr. T.V. Reed for their input, discussions, courses, and for serving on my committee to help shape this work. I would also like to thank Dr. Christine Bold who inspired my interest in American Studies and acted as a wonderful mentor in my first academic explorations of vigilantism. As well Dr. Ajay Heble influenced my perspective on Arts and Humanities education that has impacted how I research and teach in the field ever since. Finally, I would like to thank my friends who have had great conversations and had influences on my thinking and encouraged me throughout my work. Some have been lifelong friends and comic and film enthusiasts while others are colleagues at York University and Humber College. Alex Ufkes, Paul Caughill, Tracey Thomas, Bernard Ho, Maria-Lucia Di Placito, Jeoff Bull, and Leah Zeidler – I thank you all. V Table of Contents Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………. ii Dedication …………………………………………………………………………. iii Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………. iv Table of Contents …..……………………………………………………………… v Prologue ……………………………………………………………………………. 1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter 1 The Vigilante as a Mythic Figure in America .…………………………..8 Chapter 2 Vigilantes in History……………………………………………………. 38 Chapter 3 The Literary Turn………………………………………………………..69 Chapter 4 Pursuit of Economic Justice .…..………………………………………..102 Chapter 5 Vigilantes of Social Justice.……………………………………………..136 Chapter 6 Vigilantism and Gender..………………………………………………..170 Chapter 7 Vigilante Myth Meets Christian Theology……………………………. 204 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………… 225 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………. 229 1 Prologue – Where did it begin? This work truly began in my third year of undergraduate studies at the University of Guelph. I had been introduced to American Literature in a new and thought-provoking way by Dr. Christine Bold in a course on American imperial culture. The course was focused on Westerns. It was a genre I was familiar with from my father’s love of it--John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films in particular. The approach for the course was to look at how the Western frontier became popularized and mythologized to help support the imperial aims of America’s wealthy and elite. One of the major texts we focused on in the course was The Virginian. While I was engaged with these ideas I also began watching the show Dexter, and later began reading the books the show was based on. I noticed some interesting similarities between the novel The Virginian and the first season of Dexter. The Virginian was a cowboy who turned vigilante and had to lynch his best friend for cattle rustling. Dexter was a serial killer turned vigilante to murder murderers, and he had to kill his brother who was also a serial killer. I should say this is the case for the television series, but the novels did not have Dexter kill his brother. Dexter was a popular show and character, and this was an interesting phenomenon to me. Why would people sympathize with a serial killer, and furthermore view him as a hero to cheer for? It is not because people think serial killers are heroic, but instead because Dexter is a vigilante. It is the fact that he is seen as a vigilante that makes him heroic; in the same way, the Virginian is a hero and therefore his vigilante actions were seen as righteous and heroic. 2 Dexter is a serial killer who was trained to kill criminals that the legal system cannot catch. He was trained by an adopted father who was a detective, and his adopted sister follows in her father’s footsteps and becomes a detective. She learns of Dexter’s vigilante actions and supports them. In the show that takes seven seasons to occur, but in the book series she learns about it in the end of the first book. The Virginian turns vigilante under the direction and support of Judge Henry who owns the ranch that The Virginian works on. In both of these narratives officials connected to law enforcement and justice offer guidance and support to the vigilantes. This sparked my interest. I wondered what it was that makes the vigilante into a hero, even though a vigilante engages in criminal activity. I grew curious to discover if this was a larger pattern, and as this work will demonstrate, I discovered it was. The vigilante would consistently be framed as a hero figure, and in turn their violent actions would be justified and seen as heroic. The vigilante is a mythic figure that has important impacts within American culture to be further examined, and that is the project I took up. It also seemed that many individuals feel that if certain things were done to them or a loved one, they would feel a compulsion to take the law into their own hands. This seemed to be an emotional reaction that is shared across humanity. The feeling seems to be driven by more than just revenge. Instead it seems connected with wanting to be the one who delivers punishment as part of the pursuit of justice. It is an impulse to restore order or balance to the world through one’s own hands after an injustice is witnessed, experienced, or imagined. Seeking justice is not a bad motivation, but why was the use of violence so often endorsed by any individuals who used it in the name of justice? The answer lies in the status of the vigilante as a mythic hero figure in American culture. This is part of why I saw connections 3 between The Virginian and Dexter because their narratives were being mapped onto the vigilante myth; this work will engage in describing, laying out the origins of this myth, and examining its transformations across time and space in American culture. This tracing of the myth illuminates the unending cycle of violence that it perpetuates in the name of justice. This myth leads to justifying not just the violence contained in narratives of vigilantes, but actual violence done in the name of justice in American culture and history: shaping an unending cycle of violence. 4 Introduction: American Myths Before the specifics of the vigilante as a mythic figure can be addressed, the role of myth in culture, and in American culture specifically, must be explained and elaborated upon. In contemporary culture myth is associated as stories from ancient cultures that capture beliefs or sacred truths; however, myths do not exist only in the past. Myths are always rooted in the past, but they can be a powerful cultural force for making meaning in the present. As Roland Barthes wrote in Myth Today, “Ancient or not, mythology can only have a historical foundation, for myth is a type of speech chosen by history” (218). Myth operates as a form of selective memory from history. History is a narrative of the past that has been constructed to offer lessons, insights, and suggestions for the present with an eye to the future. In this way myth selects parts of historical narratives, and from particular perspectives within historical narratives, to offer a sense of truth about the lessons it offers.