analyzed by Tanya Lovetti

1. What is the genre?

Global—Action, Duel > Revenge

Secondary—Morality > Redemption > Reform

2. What are the conventions and obligatory scenes for the genre?

Conventions

Hero, Victim, Villain must be clearly defined. The protagonist must be a hero:

  • Hugh Glass is clearly the hero of this story. He is also the victim, as he is physically demolished by a bear and left for dead by his comrades, with no gun or knife to help him survive the treacherous terrain (1823-24 American Frontier). Using his wits and experience from previously living with the Pawnee Indians he is able to secure himself enough food, fire, and shelter to live, heal, and chase down his betrayers.
    • The main villain is Fitzgerald (and Bridger to a lesser extent), who steals his Anstadt rifle and knife while leaving Glass for dead.
    • The environment acts as a villain with its storms, dangerous creatures, and freezing temperatures.
    • Arikara Indians attack Glass many times.
    • Near the end of the book Glass himself morphs into a villain when he attacks Bridger. He stops just in time to remain the hero, as the reader has developed a lot of empathy for Bridger. The reader feels uncomfortable with Glass’s attack on the boy and becomes repulsed by the idea of his being killed. After all he did try to argue with Fitzgerald and make a case for, at the very least, leaving Glass his weapons. But being inexperienced and being very young, he needed to leave with Fitzgerald in order to survive. This attack on Bridger and how the reader reacts to it is in accord with the Morality > Redemption > Reform genre as explained by Freidman in the quote:

“…the protagonist’s thought is sufficient from the beginning. That is to say, he is doing wrong and he knows it… after having been led to admire him at the beginning, we feel impatience and irritation when we begin seeing through his mask… and a sense of confirmed and righteous satisfaction when he makes the proper choice at last.”

Friedman, N. (1955). Forms of the Plot. Journal of General Education. VI: 162

The power divide between the hero and the villain is very large:  Hugh Glass is a man on the brink of death under the care of cut-throat caretaker Fitzgerald and a naïve boy: Bridger. Glass can’t stop them from taking his rifle and knife, as one arm and leg are incapable of moving, his throat has been torn apart by the bear’s 6-inch claws, as has his chest, shoulder, and back. He has almost been scalped and he can no longer speak.

There is a speech in praise of the villain: When Fitzgerald and Bridger return to Captain Henry with news that they took good care of Hugh Glass and gave him a good burial, Bridger, full of guilt, marvels at the “skill, at the subtlety and deftness” with whichFitzgerald lies:“We buried him deep… covered him with enough rock to keep him protected.” Fitzgerald commends Bridger by lying, “Truth is, Captain, I wanted to get moving right away – but Bridger said we ought to make a cross for the grave.” Bridger is ashamed that the others look at him admiringly and when Captain Henry says, “I knew you’d pull your weight Bridger.”

Sub-Genre Specific Conventions for Duel-Revenge

The Hero chases the Villain:

As soon as his fever breaks, Glass feels “the visceral desire to strike out in pursuit.” He vows to get revenge. He starts by hatching a plan to retreat 350 miles downstream to Fort Brazeau so that he can recover strength, health, and provisions before pursuing them directly. After crawling to get water, smashing a snake’s head with a rock, and eating it raw, he wonders How far can I crawl in a day? And sets off on his journey.

After 6 days of crawling and eating edible plants, Glass finally comes across a Buffalo carcass, and sucks the marrow from its bones, after which he is deathly sick for a few days. He knows that without meat he will die so he sets many traps that don’t work and one that does. He eats rodents for 7 days, but it still isn’t enough meat to sustain and heal him.

On reaching the valley, he sees a pack of wolves take down a stray calf from the herd of Buffalo below. After the alpha wolves and pups finish eating he crawls towards the remaining wolves with a sage torch. He gets up on his knees and swings the torch at them, burning one wolf’s belly when it tries to attack. Glass scares the pack down and away; he uses the remainder of the buffalo to make enough jerky to last two weeks. After three days of this he is able to walk with a tree branch for a crutch.

After walking 230 miles he comes across an abandoned Arikara village where a few Sioux Indians watch him set loose the soul of an old Arikara squaw, who just died, by burning her on a pyre. The Sioux take him to their medicine man who cures his back infection, ridding the deep cuts of maggots. Then Yellow Horse takes him all the way to Fort Brazeau by horse.

Upon hearing Glass’s story and his need for justice, Kiowa Brazeau sets Glass up with food and a gun that he will charge to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The next morning Kiowa secures him a boat ride up the Missouri with 5 other men, which is the direction Glass has to go to catch up to Captain Henry and the men he wants to kill at Fort Talbot.

On their way up the river, Arikara Indians attack the men in the boat. Glass tries to save them but they are all killed. He escapes by swimming underwater and afterwards continues up the Missouri on foot.

One evening, while roasting a rabbit, Glass hears a boat on the water. They seem to want to mind their own business. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald is in the boat and he sees a white man at the fire roasting the rabbit, which seems odd. He keeps going having stolen from Captain Henry and escaping in the night.

By the time Glass reaches Fort Union, the captain and crew have gone. Fort Bighorn would be the next logical step and so he leaves for Bighorn the next day. He walks for five days until a terrible snow storm hits, soaking his breeches and freezing them with a terrible wind that keeps coming from all sides. He tries over and over to make a fire knowing that he will freeze to death if he doesn’t. Exasperated on his last try, Glass pours the rest of his gunpowder into a shallow depression. But a huge bang lets Glass know that Henry is nearby. The men just fired the canon. With frozen feet he trudges forward until he reaches Bighorn, where a very drunken New Year’s Eve party is taking place.

After being recognized, all understand that Fitzgerald and Bridger had lied about Glass, who attacks Bridger and tries to kill him. He can’t. The boy is terrified and Glass remembers the things he’d done to try to help save his life.

After failing to take revenge plan on the smaller player, Glass leaves again with a few other men going south to Fort Atkinson, where he is sure to find Fitzgerald, gambling and getting into more trouble.

On the way their horses are stolen by two Shoshone boys, and Pig is stabbed. After burying Pig, Glass shows the others how to build boats from the hides of several bulls. They float down the Platte until yet another Arikara attack takes out all the other men and Glass escapes once more – this time with an arrow embedded in the back of his leg. Glass walks the rest of the way until Lieutenant Jacobs spots him and brings him into Fort Atkinson. At last he has arrived.

Obligatory Scenes

An inciting attack by the villain: After failing to help his fellow Rocky Mountain Fur trappers defeat the Arikara Indians, Hugh Glass is attacked by a grizzly bear and his body is ripped to shreds. He can’t walk, talk, or move. He loses consciousness, but worse still he is abandoned by his caretakers Fitzgerald and Bridger who also take everything he’d need to stay alive: rifle, knife, and flint.

Hero sidesteps responsibility to take action: There isn’t much action the hero can take immediately, as he can’t even speak, though he does glare at Bridger with eyes “animated suddenly like coals beneath a bellows.” This is a demand for his knife, but he doesn’t get it. Glass also moves his eyes to his gun and Bridger knows that he’s asking to be set up with it, but Fitzgerald says no and Hugh Glass has to wait until he recovers before he can go after them for payback.

Forced to leave the ordinary world, the hero lashes out: Once Hugh Glass has been mauled, the ordinary world becomes the extraordinary world, as he is no longer equipped to navigate the perils of this high-risk environment. Glass lashes out internally by feeling “the visceral desire to strike out in pursuit…” of the men who abandoned him.

Discovering and understanding the antagonist’s MacGuffin (object of desire):

Glass awakes from a coma to realize that Fitzgerald has seen 5 “Indians” and has no interest in sticking around. He just wants to protect himself and he wants Glass’s prized Anstadt, which he takes.

Glass watches in disbelief as Bridger caves in to Fitzgerald, wanting to please anyone who is psychologically tougher than himself. Glass sees the boy is too afraid to act on his own moral compass, which could mean Hugh Glass’s life.

Hero’s initial strategy against villain fails:  When Glass has healed and re-provisioned himself, he tracks down his would-be killers, but only finds Bridger. He beats and kicks him. When Glass draws his own knife from Bridger’s belt to kill him, he looks into Bridger’s eyes and sees the fear of a boy. He remembers Bridger’s attempts to help him: patching up wounds, making him comfortable, applying a poultice, and giving him water. His revenge is unsatisfying so he stops.

Realizing they must change their approach to salvage some form of victory, the hero reaches an All Is Lost Moment: When Hugh Glass finally reaches Fort Talbot, he finds it completely deserted. He has walked and crawled almost 100 days from August to December, recovering, surviving, and tracking his offenders down. Where are they? He feels that he is chasing a mirage. It takes two days for him to leave after such a “smack in the face” from his long, determined pursuit. Exhausted, he rests and appreciates the beauty of the Frontier. But then, he reminds himself of his merciless intent: to find and kill the 2 men.          

The hero at the mercy of the villain – the central event of the action story, what the reader is waiting for. Hero’s gift is expressed in this scene:

After an unsatisfying attack on Bridger at Fort Bighorn, Glass travels to Fort Atkinson where Major Constable confirms that Fitzgerald is on site, but that he chose to enlist over going to jail for stabbing a man while gambling. Glass tells him that he wants to settle the score with him for stealing his rifle, but Constable calls for a military hearing bringing Fitzgerald in as “the accused.”

When Glass sees him, his desire to kill returns, but he has to sit through the make-do trial, which will see Fitzgerald incarcerated for 10 years if found guilty of theft. Fitzgerald turns the whole proceeding on its head and mixes lies in with the truth. He is convincing, manipulative, and surprisingly good at outwitting Glass, who simply tells the truth. Glass feels like he is the one being interrogated. He is at the mercy of a clever criminal, who is deftly practiced in the art of deception.

Everything Fitzgerald did, when they left Glass to die, he blames on Bridger who isn’t there to oppose his words. He says the boy told him Glass was dead, that taking the gun and blade was the boy’s idea too. He says that he would be “glad for the chance to give it (the Anstadt) back,” since he didn’t know “Hugh Glass was alive until yesterday.” Constable is completely suckered in so Glass pulls a pistol from his belt and shoots Fitzgerald, in the shoulder. Glass is knocked out. He awakes in a holding pen. Fitzgerald has won.

The hero’s sacrifice is rewarded:

Brazeau speaks up for Glass and has him released. Glass is told to leave or he will be tried for attempted murder. But Glass is obsessed with killing Fitzgerald despite Kiowa’s offer to join him as a business partner. Kiowa confronts him about his “stupid thoughts” and demands to know why he came here to the Frontier. Was it to relish in a “moment’s revenge” on a “common thief?”

That night, after having drinks and telling tales of his adventures, Glass goes outside and ponders the question. As he marvels at the stars and their constellations, he thinks about the extraordinary Big Horn mountains. He feels dwarfed by their majesty and mystery.

In contemplating this sacred environment, Glass is moved beyond his egoistical schemes of revenge. His self-centredness becomes irrelevant as he loses himself in reverence to the glorious creation of this great “western expanse;” he is rewarded with a divine peace that transcends all his earthly desires and is set free of his inner turmoil.

3. What is the point of view?

Using free indirect style, Michael Punke allows for almost every character to have a point of view as he slips seamlessly into each character’s thoughts and feelings at certain points. However, the main POV is that of Hugh Glass.

4. What are the objects of desire?

External/Conscious—Hugh Glass wants to kill Fitzgerald and Bridger. It isn’t the abandonment that stirs his rage; it is that they took his gun and knife – the very things he needs to survive. What actually fuels and thereby saves Glass’s life is his desire for revenge, which pushes him to do the impossible in his condition and in this extremely harsh environment. His drive to kill them keeps him alive.

Internal/Subconscious—Glass needs a spiritual awakening/transcendence to remind him of who he is and to help him release his self-absorbed drive for revenge, which is leading to internal bondage, prison, and possibly death. He is losing his freedom and his right relationship to “God” from engaging this one obsessive fault. He needs to go back to his right size and recognize that “God” is the ultimate arbiter of other “men’s” deeds. He needs to get out of the way and bring his focus back to all that is glorious around him: the rugged beauty of the American Frontier. His egoistic desire to kill needs to be replaced by acceptance of his true place and power and a reverence for all that was created without his help. He needs to revert back to his true nature (altruistic), which we see a lot of in the novel with respect to his trying endlessly to help others and save others’ lives.

5. What is the controlling idea / theme?

Life is preserved when the hero surrenders his ego, allowing for divine intervention rather than human retaliation.

6. What is the beginning hook, middle build and ending payoff?

Beginning Hook—After being mortally mauled by a Grizzly bear, Hugh Glass comes out of his coma only to find that his comrades, Fitzgerald and Bridger, are leaving him for dead, but Glass wants to live, so he points to his Anstadt and demands with his eyes, yet the two take his gun and knife away with them, leaving the febrile trapper with nothing but a plan for revenge.

Middle Build—When Glass’s fever breaks, all he can do is crawl and he knows he needs meat, so when a pack of wolves take a Buffalo calf down, he is desperate enough to crawl towards them and fight them off with fire, allowing him enough meat to last two weeks in which time his body to heals enough to walk most of the way to Fort Brazeau where Kiowa sets Glass up with food and a rifle, so that he can embark on his final leg up the Missouri to exact his revenge, but Fitzgerald canoes past him, while camped at night, going in the opposite direction.

Ending Payoff—When Glass finds Captain Henry and crew, Fitzgerald is missing, so Glass beats up Bridger but can’t kill the terrified boy, so he moves on to Fort Atkinson where a military trial is conducted for the theft of his Anstadt wherein Glass shoots Fitgerald in the shoulder only to land himself in a holding cell. He is released upon the good word of Kiowa Brazeau who challenges Glass’s continued desire for revenge calling it “stupid” and asking him why he came here in the first place – a question that Glass later contemplates under the night sky along with other mystical queries he has about the astounding qualities of nature and divine creation, and as he does this he feels himself transform; he becomes elevated above his petty human concerns and is restored to a state of peace and oneness with all.

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