Humanities Homework Help

Can you help me understand this American Studies question?

First to help you understand what the question entails let me give you some background. Much of what we “know” of the cowboy is clearly fictionalized.  I’m sure you’ve watched at least one film where you’ve seen that romanticized image of the cowboy presented for public consumption, if not in a – now antiquated – ad for Marlboro cigarettes.  He’s rugged, handsome, fearless, and quite adept with a revolver.  That’s obviously a bit of a stretch, especially when the truth reveals the weapon he carried was a rope rather than a gun.  As for the rest… well, that’s up to interpretation.

Now that you’ve gotten some idea of what a real cowboy was and after reading the pieces on Cowboys that have attached about how cowboys can be fictionalized in such telling tones as suggested by Stephen Crane’s “Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” Please help me understand in your own thoughts as to what values you think this icon of the American West projects. While these values, whatever you suggest they are, can be positive or negative, help clarify where you see such values: in the story (“Bride”), in another story, in a movie, on television, in an ad, etc.  What’s being projected and what values does it perpetuate?  What do you think of such values?  Your overall post should be about a paragraph in length, but the length of that paragraph will be entirely determined by what you need to illustrate and your thoughts.