The struggle in Welcome to Hard Times is between the Man from Bodie, who in a fit of rage destroys a town in a single day, and Blue, the tragic old man who almost singlehandedly tries to rebuild it. At the same time, he writes from within the genre by maintaining the customary strong opposition between good and evil, between the “bad guys” and the “good guys,” and by fashioning a simple but compelling plot line. Knowing that the Western has often been the vehicle for the celebration of American individualism and morality, Doctorow purposely writes a fablelike novel in which he questions American faith in fairness and democracy. Even when his subject is not overtly political-as in his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times-he chooses the genre of the Western to comment upon the American sense of crime and justice. Doctorow’s (Janu– July 21, 2015) work is concerned with those stories, myths, public figures, and literary and historical forms that have shaped public and political consciousness.
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