Study Guide to The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Clark

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645420675
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident, said to be one of the greatest Western novels ever written. As a classic novel set in 1885 but written in 1938, The Ox-Bow Incident draws parallels between Nazi brutality and the vigilantes showcased in the novel in order to communicate unjust violence can occur anywhere at any time. Moreover, the novel serves as a great example of realism, having been written during the realist movement. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Clark’s classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&As The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO WALTER CLARK

 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

Place Of Birth: It is surprising to learn that Walter Van Tilburg Clark, who has become famous as a writer of Western stories and as a man who can develop convincingly the character of a Western hero or villain, was in fact born in the East. He was born in East Orland, Maine, on August 3, 1909. His experiences in the West began early in his life, however, for he was only eight years old when his family moved from Maine to Reno, Nevada. His father became the President of the University of Nevada at that time, and held the position for many years.

His Early Schooling: The young Clark attended grammar school and high school in Reno, where his family continued to live. Eventually he entered the University there, and received both his B.A. and M.A. degrees. He forsook the West for some time after this, going back to the east coast where he attended the University of Vermont for two more years of graduate study. Here he pursued two interests, philosophy and English literature.

Teaching: After these experiences as a student, Clark decided to remain in the academic world in a somewhat different capacity; he taught school for ten years in Cazenovia, New York. Here he showed the same versatility-of interests which later became evident in his writing; he served as basketball coach, advisor to the school dramatics group, and instructor. In 1933 he married Barbara Morse, a resident of Troy, Pennsylvania.

New Mexico: After looking at this much of Clark’s life, it seems impossible that he could ever have become famous as a writer of Western stories. His early love of the West eventually reasserted itself, however, and after several years in Cazenovia he and his family moved to Taos, New Mexico. The Clarks lived in Taos only briefly, but it was long enough to convince Clark of something he had long suspected: he was, by nature if not by birth, intended to be a Westerner.

Nevada: Following his fairly brief residence at Taos, Clark moved on to Washoe Valley, in Nevada. Here he bought an old ranch, took up writing more and more seriously, and lived until 1951. He stopped teaching while in Nevada, and devoted himself full time to his writing, producing poetry, short stories, novellas, novels, and occasional nonfiction articles for national magazines.

San Francisco: Eventually Clark took up his academic career again, this time at San Francisco State College, where he is now a professor of English. He, his wife and family presently reside in San Francisco.

Publications: Early in his career Clark was principally a writer of poetry. He soon broadened his attempts to include short stories, and printed stories in national magazines throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He worked on his first novel, The Ox-Bow Incident, during 1937 and 1938; it was published in 1940, and immediately established its author as one of the more significant novelists of the decade. This was followed by The City of Trembling Leaves, which appeared in 1945, and The Track of the Cat, which was published in 1949. In 1950 he published The Watchful Gods and Other Stories, a collection of short stories which has received considerable critical attention.

INTRODUCTION TO WALTER CLARK

CLARK AND THE REALISTIC MOVEMENT

 

What Is Realism? To discuss the literary movement known as realism, one must first have a clear idea of precisely what realism is. In its broadest sense it can mean simply the accurate use of concrete details for the purpose of raising interest or creating an effect. So understood, realism has appeared in all periods of writing - Shakespeare’s clowns are realistic, eighteenth-century English novelists such as Fielding or Defoe are quite realistic; even poets like Wordsworth or Robert Burns are realists if the term is used in its broadest sense.

Another Possibility: There is a second, more restricted kind of realism which one finds in writing where the characters are closely linked to, and affected by, their environments and by the events of their lives. This view of life usually rests on the idea that man knows only through his senses, only through what he can see or hear or touch or smell. Necessarily, the outside world must be of great importance in this kind of writing, since it is usually a major shaping force in the lives of characters; usually the reader gains a vivid sense of that outside world, and of the effect which environment and circumstances have on lives.

The Realistic Movement: There is a still more literal sense which the term “realism” may have, however. This applies specifically to a group of writers, beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century, who have attempted common goals in the writing of fiction. The realists are noted for an attempt at objectivity, for letting their material tell its own story, rather than being somehow shaped or manipulated by the writer. They stress the ordinary life, the day-to-day existence of people who are not extraordinarily talented, or beautiful, or clever, or wealthy, or good - they write of the plain life of plain people.

The realists also tend to write about the immediate area in which they live, rather than putting their characters in some distant or exotic land; they stress the observation of objective reality rather than the creation of imaginative events or details. Above all, the realists stress the use of everyday language for their everyday people and lives; they eschew rhetoric in their attempt to let their people and their events speak for themselves.

Intent: The writers of the realistic movement, then, have simply refined and narrowed the general meaning of the word realism until they achieved characteristic styles and attitudes which set their writing apart from that which is only incidentally close to objective reality. They attempt to capture the essence of life as it is lived by the common man, and generally their literature is intended for, not the educated upper classes, but the common man himself.

Representatives: Emile Zola, the French nineteenth-century writer who wrote Nana, Germinal, and many other novels, is generally considered to be the father of the realistic school, along with his fellow-countryman Gustave Flaubert. Realism flourished in France with the activities of other writers, including Guy de Maupassant; in Russia it was developed by Tolstoy and Turgenev. America has had writers who concentrate on realistic detail as early as Mark Twain (mid-nineteenth century); it is the turn-of-the-century novelist, however, who is chiefly remembered for the development of realism as practiced by Zola and Flaubert. The novelist-critic Henry James is famous for his attempts to capture “a slice of life”; his friend and colleague, William Dean Howells, is remembered for the “moral realism” which attempted to pursue everyday life while showing the moral significance of certain actions. Others, like the Englishman Somerset Maugham, preferred simply to chronicle life and leave the moral significance, if any, strictly up to the reader.

Recent Realistic Writers: The realistic novel has been popular in the United States ever since its first appearance. Some notable writers in the realistic tradition include James T. Farrell (Studs Lonigan), John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flats), James Jones (From Here to Eternity), Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead), and many more.

Criticisms: The realistic novel has had a good deal of criticism during its existence. It has been attacked because it makes no attempt to uplift or inspire its audience; because it tells of the ordinary man rather than the extraordinary, complex, interesting one; because it oversimplifies life with its concentration on environment and psychology; and because it concentrates too much on ordinary diction and historical plot, rather than on inventiveness. In the second-rate realistic novel, any or all of these charges would probably have been justified. In the hands of a-Twain, a James, a Steinbeck - or a Clark - however, realism can do everything its detractors say it cannot. And, whatever its virtues or its drawbacks might be, it is still considered by most critics to be the predominant tendency in modern writing.

Clark As Realist: What kind of realist is Clark? Does he belong to the school of realism, or does he simply use accurate detail which is interesting, but not essential to his writing? A close look at his novels must put him in the realistic school in the tradition of Howells, Henry James, James Jones, Steinbeck. To be sure, Clark uses realistic detail extensively and skillfully. He is not merely painting an interesting picture with local color, however; he is writing a vivid, sometimes brutal, overwhelmingly moral story of men who are shaped by their environment and by what they themselves are. Thus he conforms to the more limited definition of realism, and can be put in the ranks of the realistic movement.

Freedom: Clark’s characters are not really free. They are primarily shaped by the kind of lives they lead: they are violent men, attuned to struggle, and they are accustomed to acting fast and sometimes brutally to obtain their ends. They are shaped by their position in life, and they are also shaped by weaknesses within themselves; they lack courage, they lack the ability to think clearly, they lack the strength to oppose mass decisions. They are largely determined in their behavior by environmental and psychological factors.

Style: Clark’s style corresponds to the characteristics of the realistic novel. His diction is simple, even slangy; obviously the characters are uneducated working men, and their conversation is appropriate to them. Since the entire book is told by Art Croft, the narrator, the language never becomes mannered or artificial. This is not to say that Clark is a tape-recorder, or that his language is dull or unpleasant; on the contrary, one can see that he has, with considerable artistry, shaped everyday language into an artistic instrument.

Objectivity: The use of a character within the book as narrator also allows Clark objectivity. His characters can function almost completely independently of their creator; the author is able to remove himself and let the material carry the story along.

Plot: As with style, plot in The Ox-Bow Incident is simple in the extreme. There is nothing fanciful, nothing of the imagination; Clark has simply taken an incident repeated on many pages of American history, and written a novel around it. Again, however, this must not be confused with reporting. If Clark’s plot is historical, and if he simply follows literal time, he has done it for a purpose. In The Ox-Bow Incident he has taken ordinary men in a fairly ordinary situation, and has showed universal truths about humanity. One might very well disagree with Clark’s conclusions, but one would not criticize the artistry with which he conveys them. Clark is a novelist of the realistic school, not a reporter.

INTRODUCTION TO...