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joum ey would prove transformative . . (Will 304). Wister clearly saw
the difference between east and west, civilization and frontier, beyond
the mere physical, and brought that as well as his actual experiences to
his novel; “As the narrative proceeds, the narrator perceives that
‘[c]learly this wild country spoke a language other than m ine’” (305).
The literary/filmic westem character reflects this perceived
reality, but in a fashion more grand and dramatic. He becomes
everything that the verbose, deceptive, milquetoast eastemer is not. The
w estem hero “ . . . moves within a sphere o f self-contained masculinity,
bringing Order to an unbalanced environment, writing and speaking only
when he has something significant— something that signißes — to s a y . . . .
W ister’s novel standardizes a genre in which ‘straight talk’ is equated
with clear judgm ent, moral probity, and certain masculinity” (Will 295).
According to W ister’s protagonist, the west is a place only for men who
can do the things they do well (258). It’s easy to understand why a writer
would choose a name that signifies something-one that describes-for
such a character, rather than just a family name that would not be
expected to have any connection to the character outside o f birth. Unlike
in the eastem world of small talk, social chit-chat, false politeness and
outright deceit, the westem man “. . . speaks and acts as though the world
and the word were stable and balanced, as though actions produced
effects and words produced meanings”(295). Words produce meanings,
and names are words. Both the characters and the creators have reasons
for withholding or recreating such meanings.
In discussing the frontier’s significance, Turner ended with these
words: “And now, four centuries from the discovery o f America, at the
end o f a hundred years o f life under the Constitution, the frontier has
gone, and with its going has closed the first period o f American history”
(88). As a nation defined itself in terms o f the frontier, so did men go to
the frontier to define themselves. This makes the frontier-the American
w est-a uniquely suitable setting for a Man with No Name. O f course,
this means that much in the realm o f Science fiction could work as well.
Science fiction has its own frontiers; space, the “final frontier” (Star Trek
was partly inspired by the westem series, Wagon Train) and the frontier
o f the future, o f new technology (Geraghty 194). These frontiers are so
stränge in themselves, however, that a character’s namelessness cannot
add much to the narrative, and, a name that defies human naming
conventions is as good as no name anyway. In Order to have effect, the