The present paper aims at offering a reflection upon the specific link between a genre, the Western, and its literary and visual tradition, a powerful mythopoeic means capable of fostering a normalization of social reality itself. The Western represents the foundation of the law’s ability to make order out of chaos. Indeed, Westerns usually feature a solitary dominant hero, whose violent expressions are shown as positive, since violence is used for the elimination of the enemy, the re-establishment of order and the triumph of law. The most relevant legal issue of the Western is to be found in this monopoly of violence, allowed to a single hero by civil society in order to counter an illegal spiral of violence.
Western and Post-Western Mythologies of Law
BATTISTI, Chiara
2014-01-01
Abstract
The present paper aims at offering a reflection upon the specific link between a genre, the Western, and its literary and visual tradition, a powerful mythopoeic means capable of fostering a normalization of social reality itself. The Western represents the foundation of the law’s ability to make order out of chaos. Indeed, Westerns usually feature a solitary dominant hero, whose violent expressions are shown as positive, since violence is used for the elimination of the enemy, the re-establishment of order and the triumph of law. The most relevant legal issue of the Western is to be found in this monopoly of violence, allowed to a single hero by civil society in order to counter an illegal spiral of violence.
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