Victoria Young -- Western Women

   You spend a long time in this paper discussing the plot of the film
   "High Plains Drifter" and the roles the female characters play there.
   However, this paper was supposed to be about "All the Pretty Horses."
   While the film does illustrate some of the typical characteristics
   of the Western genre, a lot of what you are saying is unfortunately 
   pretty much off-topic and it kept you from really engaging with
   what goes on in the book and developing your own ideas about it.  

   I think that the idea that Alfonsa takes on characteristics of male 
   characters in other Western stories is also somewhat questionable.  
   I think Cormac McCarthy's big innovation here is to create a strong
   female character who does not fit into the usual conventions of
   the Western genre at all.  That is, it's not that she takes a masculine
   role;  the way her character functions in this story is that she inhabits a 
   separate world from John Grady.  They only have a limited set of ways 
   they can interact with each other, but she has a huge influence on the 
   story nevertheless.  Note:  She doesn't live out of doors (at least
   since the hunting accident that cost her her fingers); her aggression is
   expressed through the ritualized combat of the game of chess; she doesn't seem 
   to have the same connection to the world of animals; she is focused on 
   her family's honor and Alejandra's reputation and that seems to be a foreign 
   concept to John Grady because it's so much tied to the norms of traditional 
   Mexican society.  

   Content:  B

   Mechanics:  A-