La stratégie marketing

Chapter I

THE LOST FRONTIER - THE LOST LADY

        American literature is composed by 3 main genres. Fantastic, Science-fiction and Western.

Each genre has its one main character : the tough guy, the private, the hero and the cow-boy. They

all represent the frontier hero and it's still true as the modem hero always try to save himself from

the outside world (ex. The Matrix, Heroes). These heroes appeared in the 19th century with the

birth of the Frontier tales: Davy Crockett (1786 - 1836).

I – Background : the myth of the American Frontier

1) Westward Movement, meaning and symbols: Mark TWAIN (1835-1910)

        Even if 'A Trial' takes place in Peru, the whole story is framed by California which was

conquered by "Americans" during the American War (it was a Mexican land before that).

Mark Twain describes Californians "in the early days" as rude people. Indeed, they seem to quite

appreciate the way Blakely deals with his enemies ("primitiveness and simplicity" 1.148). They were

homesteaders that were there to settle, breed cattle, grow cops and organize society. They were

doing their own justice and did whatever they wanted. Thus, Blakely isn't a bad guy in this story but

a rough guy (like cow-boys in Spaghetti Westerns).

        The Frontier Myth represented hope in a better life, wealth (The Gold Rushes & the

Canadian Klondike), freedom for everybody that came to settle in the West. Moreover, spirit of

entrepreneurship had stemmed from this Myth. In the late 19th century, the idea of Freedom was

embodied by 2 famous characters : Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn. They weren't tied

by any law or authorities. However, individualism at that time did not necessarily mean anti

conformism. Ex : mobs in Westerns against the bad guy.

        Moreover the Frontier Myth is a symbol of purity and innocence : it's the image of natural

man living in the wilds, uncorrupted by civilization (cf. Rousseau). There are great natural forces

that cleanse the American from his sins (capitalism and industrialization).

As in the Bible, the Frontier Myth is the "Promised Land" and it is the founding myth of the Pilgrim

Fathers. Indeed, literature has always been at the root of the creation of ideologies.

        Mark Twain is an American American writer, as opposed to English American writers like

James Fenimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans).

American American literature has a simple style, devoid of the Victorian ornaments of English

literature. It reproduces the spoken idioms of his characters (lots of dialogue).

Those traits have been continued in literature, for instance in the late 20th century : Raymond

Carver. Geoffrey Moore said that English American literature was "English, Genteel and Paleface"

while American American literature was "Frontier, Vernacular and Redskin".

Mark Twain's "A trial" is the idea of something rough, natural and wild.

Mark Twain's trick is that he writes his fictitious story as if he had heard of it (Robinson Crusoe)

2) The trauma of the closing of the Frontier: Willa CATHER (1873-1947)

        It meant that the railway rad reached to the further part of the nation

(industrialization → railway expansion).

        Frontier closed in 1890 and it suggested loss of wilderness, freedom, purity and innocence.

There was no more open space to conquer. This might explain why the literature of the end of the

19h was so much pessimistic. From that very moment, literature focused on urbanization and

industrialization.

Mark Twain = Naturalist literature.

It corresponds to speculation and the railway company's hold on the farmers, their crops as the

farmers became dependant on the railway for the transportation of their goods.

        Willa Cather's novel, The Lost Lady

→ She borrowed the title from Sir William Berkeley.

→ It was written quite late (20th century). It corresponds to the naturalistic trend in realistic

literature. Association of "novel" and "realism" → tautology.

→ who becomes the victim of speculators who used to be pure and noble, virtuous but after the death

of her husband, she acts like a vulgar prostitute, due to stress and sickness.

→ Somehow the tale is allegorical, about the American nation symbolized by Marian, bringing

forward the idea that America, at the closing of the century, had lost its virginity, had become a "lost

lady". Speculation is at the basis of corruption, exploitation of people with a capitalist system.

II – The development of naturalism

1) Causes and influences

        Foreign influences : the birth of sociology (first sociologists Herbert Spencer & Auguste

Comte). Herbert Spencer is the one who vulgarised Charles Darwin's theories in the States (The

origin of the species, 1859). It established that theory that described man as a biological entity

caught within the web of society. He's no longer free or responsible for his behaviour. Spencer

interpreted Darwin wrongly, he made of himself an advocate of social Darwinism: the survival of

the fittest. But still, that was a great leap forward considering the idea that Man was guided by

God. Darwin's theory somehow was a move towards pragmatism.

Herbert Spencer tried to justify Darwin's theory and ended up to a

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