Martial Masculinity and the Ethics of Heroism in Fools Crow

Abstract

The problem of the mythic cowboy hero in traditional Westerns lies in his relationship with others. Contemporary examinations of the codes of ethics in Westerns, such as No Country for Old Men, critique the genre’s traditional embrace of a masculinity that perpetuates violence through its practice of power brokerage. But do they provide a viable alternative, a model in which acting like a man does not necessitate exercising power over others? Sheriff Ed Tom Bell steps away from his role as an arbiter of justice, a man with the power to catch and incarcerate others, but he is unable to provide any “fix” for the racially biased judicial system in which he, as a white man, is implicated. If “cowboy masculinity” is inherently unethical, a version of hegemonic masculinity in which being a man is defined at least in part by its exercise of power over others, is there a way to practice masculinity without an exercise of power over others, to separate the “cowboy” from the hegemonic power of “manliness”? James Welch’s Fools Crow (1986) offers just such a model. Fools Crow is a mythpoetic narrative that traces the rise of a hero, the eponymous young man whose virtues embody the values of his society. Fools Crow, in short, is not just a mythic Western hero: he is depicted as the mythic Western hero.