"Edgar? EDGAR?"

Getting a little more serious and a wee bit scientific today, we're looking at the appeal of the Old West. What fragrance does it use?

The Myth

The frontier myth? What is that?

First of all, a myth is a vivid narrative that has been found to be true and has been passed down through generations. The more credible this narrative turns out to be, the more important the protagonists of the myth become.

The myth of the West is a complex and influential construct of American culture that, based on the thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner and Richard Slotkin, is the point at which a narrative emerges that can break free from the shackles between civilization and wilderness. This place is the West, with its boundless freedom, between lawlessness, roughness, and the chances of becoming a character who has made it. Whereby this "it" can be ambivalent, but usually has a positive effect.

The heroes of these narratives, there are four archetypes, are first formed in the pulp novels of the time, then later through books and films. Together with those, an image of boundless freedom in this country was constructed, the freedom of individualism and the promise of wealth.

The archetypal heroes of the West are: Daniel Boone, an adventurer and scout; William Clark, the expedition leader who found the overland route to the West Coast; Davy Crockett, a mystical character, whose greatest contribution was his death at the Alamo, a place more symbolic for America's growth, expansion and liberation than almost any other; and "Kit" Carson, a man whose heroism springs from the dime novels of those years. A conglomerate of these archetypes is Buffalo Bill, a soldier, hunter and entertainer who reshaped the West in his shows according to the demands of his audience.

All of these figures have become mythical figures through their own portrayal or through the portrayal of strangers, although the real person did not match the myth at all in some cases.

The Dark Side

The myth of the West is embodied in hardly any narrative genre as much as in the Western, where even in the revisionist representatives of that very genre there are always the smallest traces of romanticisation, idealisation or archetyping of these narratives or the characters. An extreme example of how the myth is transported are the stories of Karl May. The German author gave himself over to a completely romanticised and idealised form of myth when he wrote his novels, because he had never seen or known the land and the dreary downside of the colonisation of America at the time of his authorship.

Every myth also has a dark side, and it redeems itself on the backs of those who are not part of exceptionalism at the time of its creation, mostly in generally marginalised groups and victims of unspeakable violence and racism. Boom and bust, metaphorically too. In the game Red Dead Redemption 2, the Wapiti people, represented by the characters Rains Fall and Eagle Flies, are sufferers of predation and the displacement that accompanies it.

The role of the cowboy, an occupation that was hard and dangerous, has also always been romanticised and goes hand in hand with the image of the lone rider on his horse, riding off into the sunset in the most beautiful landscapes in America.

Which story has shaped your interest in the Wild West and why? Feel free to write to us in the comments or on our social media channels.

PS: Update is in the works and will be applied in the near future!