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Show 49 Such lurid in the description earned for May the title "Corrupter pages of contemporary newspapers, of Youth" but other realistic Western writers before May and since have written in a'similar 'vein without offending critics.4l the Murder is the main but, according his Western to "According grounds: the to has earned his death. ,,42 ,that in America he for grounds law, and And by the and with the frequent legal aspect to for Shooting if one a the concern of Western of what Thomas Mann.has called "the German respect same a man.1n reality, a there horse or May's West, were cattle other thief unwritten law May stresses "who forces his way into my wigwam, without my death.,,43 May's instant in law of the West, permission, mut expect, according . kanging law law of the West, with the an "unwritten law," reveals his Germanic sense solemn, discreet,. almost overawed authority." man in May's Wild West is not always knows. the mag;i.c words "Hands· up (HHnde hoch)." necessary Says May of th;i.s customry phrase: 41 Consider of Cooper's description, in The Prairie, of the death old Indian: "The old man raised his tottering frame to its s t re tched out his neck to the blow A few ·trokes of knees" and an ••• . . •••• the tomahawk, with a circling gash of the knife, .sufficed to sever the head from. the, less valued trunk." James Fenimore Cooper, The and Co Prairie (NewYork ; n.d.), pp. 387-88. Hereafter: , Doubleday .. Prairie. 42Silbersee, . 43Wnnetou, p. II, 46. 288. .. e .• |
