Doan 1

Enrico Doan
Clarke Speed
Honors 232 Accumyoulation Paper
Eyelids, Difference, National History Making, and the Prophetic, Violent Game of the Frontier1
Frontier narratives are an integral part of the national narrative that is collectively called
Americana. Frontiers define boundaries, infinite opportunities, conflict, and the synthesis of
civilizations. As such, the literature of frontier making demands to act as a lens into the inner
mechanisms of the elusive game that is made evident through constructions of frontier spaces
and national narratives. Of course, the examination of this game must involve factors that range
from the biological function, the ability of the frontier to craft national narratives, the violence
against the participants in the game, and the subsequent formation of treasonous prophets.
Eyelids and Difference: How Physiologies are Inherently Tied to the Analysis of Difference2
In Larry McMurtrys Comanche Moon, Inish Scull is the representation of the eager and
willing prophet. Despite the stigma attached to the label prophet, Inish Scull still attempts to
receive the most amount of information, and then propagate the power of such knowledge to
those that he comes into contact with. His fixation on knowledge gives him the desire to truly see
difference, to understand how the languages of difference operate, and how to maneuver within
these languages in order to become an actual prophet. However, I argue that his salvation in this
goal comes not from his own (direct) devices. Rather, it is Ahumados action that cuts off Sculls
eyelids that starts Sculls path down the road of the seeing-difference prophet. In Comanche
Moon, the disregard of biology and the discarding of health is the true freedom. No longer is
Scull held tight to the material dream that biology allows humans to become prophets. No, Scull,
in the removal of his eyelids, in the discarding of a vital component of his biology, is then able to
achieve the role of prophet, only to discover that the job is not at all what he expected.
Goyeto and Ahumado designed the torture of removing eyelids in order to drive men
insane, to burn the sun in their eyes, and to have their last moments filled with the constancy of a
single view. McMurtry writes tied to the skinning post, with no eyelids or any means of
shielding his eyes, the Major had to bear the full light of the August sun for a whole day, and by
the end of it, he was insane. It was if the sun had burned away his brain (McMurtry 386). In this
scene, the Major tortured by Ahumado and Goyeto is stuck without the facility of his eyelids. In
the discarding of this biological physiology, he is forced to consider the function of his eyelids.
What we discover is that eyelids are the most important biological and cultural devices. The role
of eyelids is to provide difference. Eyelids are used to maintain sanity, to provide other pictures,
and to provide the comfort of darkness in overwhelming brightness. Eyelids are the mechanism
through which we are able to distinguish light from dark, to identify changes in landscape, and to
examine the evolution of a frontier. However, when eyelids are removed, then the function too is
missing. Without this, those who are unprepared soon become lost. There is only one constantly
changing image. Because the Major has had no fixation on the pursuit of knowledge, he is unable
to handle the stress of being exposed to a single continuous landscape, without the breaks that
are granted by the eyelids. With the case of the Major, we establish that biology gives humans
the (rather fraudulent) right to distinguish between landscapes, and to mediate our understanding
of difference with periods of blissful ignorance.

Doan 2
However, in the case of Scull, knowledge is everything. He has spent his entire life
seeking knowledge, whether about the ancient languages, the civil structure of the contemporary
America, or the barbaric natures of those others outside and inside the frontier. As such, Scull
(at least to onlookers) seems to actually embrace the loss of his eyelids. McMurtry describes the
natural phenomena that occur after Sculls eyelids are delicately stolen from him, before the sun
could begin to bring its searing heat into Big Horse Sculls brain, clouds, heavy and dark, begin
to roll in from the west. Thunder shook the cliffs and hard rain fell (McMurtry 387). In
discarding the biological function of eyelids, which is to protect that precious lens into the world
of understanding, Scull appears to be rejoicing in the construction of the last step between him
and status as a prophet. The rumbling of the natural world too rejoices in Sculls final step into
the door of all-encompassing knowledge and the threat of insanity. Scull is now in the position to
understand everything he can no longer use his biology as an escape hatch out of knowing.
Scull has started down on the path of diligence, the path where ignorance is not tolerated. And
his success seems to be perfect and have the support of the entire natural world behind it.
However, Scull soon discovers that he was perhaps not ready for the role of prophet. His
actions after the torture seem to show that he was not ready for the constant flow of knowledge,
and that he actually desires to return to his bouts of ignorance with each blink that he takes.
McMurtry says about Sculls experiences after the torture, On days when they tied him to the
skinning post his vision became a blur he could distinguish motion and outlines, but not much
else. The rains had stopped and the sun was blinding (McMurtry, 433). This passage suggests
that Scull has become overwhelmed by the loss of his recluse in ignorance. By the robbing of his
biological function, Scull is also losing the ability distinguish and understand with clarity. Now
he is only able to distinguish motion and outlines which is not the best situation for a prophet
to be in. Because of this, Scull is losing the motivation for knowledge. His original thirst to
understand the mechanisms of difference are being blurred away because his sight too is
becoming hazy. With the increased inability to distinguish worlds, so too is his ability to act in
the process of difference and space making decreasing. Despite his original brief moment of
mystical capacity, in which he was apparently able to explain difference as a physical space in all
niches of the world, Sculls mythic materialization of difference is becoming ineffectual. His
ability to translate the narrative of difference into the tongue of those listeners, into physical
manifestations that are tangible and understandable to the lowly listeners, is deteriorating into an
ability of profound insanity and apathy. And with the discarding of passion, so too fades the
prophetic status that tantalized Scull for such a short time.
Because of this experience, Scull realizes that his previous status as a knowledgeable
non-prophet was perfectly fine preferable, even, to the state that he is in now. During that time,
his biology still endowed him with a mystic ability to analyze the frontier of difference and his
ability to create labels that distinguish between us and them. His only mechanism of frontier
making his ability to understand difference has been tainted by the removal of biology, and so
he seeks his previous standards in the presence of artificial physiology. McMurtry writes of
Sculls endeavors after the war and his new artificial eyelids, Scull clicked his lenses a few
times, until he came to the last lens, the one that shut out all the light and insured perfect
darknessSoult was not in on the secret; he didnt know that he had just vanished from view
(McMurtry 658). Here, Sculls newfound (or returning to the old) ability to return to a place of
solitude, peace, and above all darkness allows him to regain his mystic status. He returns to the
comfortable space that he constructs for himself. His frontier is that of the prophet but he no
longer pushes the boundary as he used to dare to earlier. He remains comforted in his ability to

Doan 3
analyze others as moving agents in the clockwork cosmology of civilization, while moving about
it himself with greater mobility. In a way, Scull is greater than at either stage before. He has the
ability to break free and eradicate all of his difference-seeing frontiers by opening his blinders,
but also has the ability to maintain sanity and clear vision by reconstructing his boundary with a
mere click. This ability is so mystic to others, because of the constant breaking down3 and
reconstruction of frontiers. The fragility of Sculls frontiers allows him to reach a pseudo-prophet
status. And in this way, Scull is able to analyze vector time, the ritualization of frontier making,
and the boundary spaces that each and every single language depends on but no longer is he
able to, nor chose to, examine the future and predict the ramifications of actions. Scull only
prophetizes on the present now.
Comanche Moon fixates on the differences between conflicting frontiers. One of the few
men who are able to traverse and simultaneously understand the languages of interfering
hegemonies is Inish Scull. And in his pursuit of ultimate knowledge, ultimate vision of all
cosmologies, he discovers the material right that is ignorance, which is intrinsically held in the
space of his biology. In reaching prophetic status, Scull determines that his mystic capacity has
been lost, and he no longer is able to construct frontier spaces because his prophetic status is only
achieved through the complete and utter movement past frontiers. He gains an appreciation for
ignorance something that many take for granted in the ability to jump away from a landscape
to make it understandable. Because of this his new artificial biology maintains both aspects - he
now has the ability to juggle a prophetic breaking down of frontiers and the subsequent
reconstruction through ignorance. This face of Scull maintains his status as a mystic agent, one
who can visualize the mechanisms and collisions of cosmologies, but also shield himself from
the overload of languages that is present in all the competing hegemonies of his own frontiers.4
National History Making: The Exceptionalist Prophet and the Surpassing of Timely Biology
In Cormac McCarthys Blood Meridian, the Judge is the most enigmatically unchanging
constant. Whereas in Sculls case, the discarding of biology and subsequent recovery leads to a
pseudo-prophetic status, Judge Holden in Blood Meridian provides an entirely new dynamic. I
argue that Judge Holden approaches the previously established relationship between biology and
prophethood in a new manner, and in doing so, reveals mechanisms behind the art of
constructing national remembrances. Judge Holden, thus is able to circumvent Sculls method of
prophetic status then, because of his actions as a historian who constantly reshapes history.
The Judge, first and foremost, is a man of great knowledge. He chronicles, sketches, and
records every single interesting commodity that he comes across, despite the peril and exhaustion
that seem to be propagating all around him. McCarthy writes about the Judges ability and desire
to see complexities, saying that whether in my book or not, every man is tabernacle in every
other and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the
uttermost edge of the world (McCarthy, 147). In this passage, the Judge demonstrates the
enormous and incomprehensible ability to analyze cosmologies something that is beyond the
riddling skills of those common companies in the hunt for scalps. The Judges preoccupation
with the witnessing of the uttermost edge leads to an all-consuming hunt for knowledge
knowledge that drives the world and understands the mechanisms to change it, or rewrite it. The
Judge gains infamy for this ability to connect concepts, parables, lessons to tangentially related
problems that arise. It is through this cognitive space that we see how vastly in-tune he is with
the cosmologies of universes. Because he understands everything (at least, to the non-true5), and

Doan 4
does not shy away from the danger of being a visionary, we, as compatriots on this scalping
journey, make him into our personal prophet.
The Judge does not discard biology in Sculls manner (the physical removal of it), but
rather discards his mortality, which is unholy in and of itself. He is blessed and cursed with
immortality, having a ritualized space in the vector of time that allows him to bear the burden of
living and escape from the frightening concept of non-existence. Many decades after the gangs
journeys throughout the evening redness, the Judge retains his appearance, having not aged a
single day, in comparison to the metamorphosis of the kid into the man. This immortality cannot
come without a job however. There must be some role that the Judge plays, beyond the gatherer
of information, which allows him to continue to exist in the plane of reality. Without it, the Judge
fades from existence, and is forgotten so largely that he is made mystic. This realization forces us
to examine his role as a prophet he can only claim that he is the eternal dancer and fiddler if
and only if he performs a mystic role.
This realization leads us to examine the Judge, not as a fighter, but in his history-making.
The Judges fixation on the pressing of objects into his book, his secrets of knowledge, and the
kernels of imagination ultimately leads to a single goal constructing some sort of national
narrative. McCarthy writes of the Judge and his habits, the judge sketched in profile and in
perspective, citing the dimensions in his neat script, making marginal noteswhen he had done
he took up the foot guardand then crushed it into a ball of foil and pitched it into the fire
(McCarthy, 146). The Judge then, is the epitome of historians. He examines antiquities of the
past, records them in his tome of knowledge, and then proceeds to erase the physical
manifestation of conceptualized culture. This is the most violent act against history, but it is the
most direct way to the salvation of a new world in this act, the Judge is in fact rewriting
history. He selectively chooses memoirs to remember, to record of events that only he deems for
his book, and then constructs a continual narrative that is strangely reminiscent of an exceptional
nationalism with all of its selective remembrances.6
Indeed then, this is his role. The Judge serves as a historian, and reveals to us his history
of Americana he is much satisfied with the world, as if his counsel had been sought at its
creation (McCarthy, 146). And the world does seek his counsel he is the one who constructs
frontiers, who transgresses them, and who writes the definition of the Americana. In this role, he
is an immortal prophet, an exceptionally patriotic historian, and the ultimate keeper of time and
knowledge. Indeed, anything that exists without his knowledge exists without his consent.7
The Game: Violence Against Avid Participants and the Rare Formation of Common Prophets
Wallace Stegners The Big Rock Candy Mountain details the story of two generations of
the Mason family, as they practice the American Dream in all of Bos commercial endeavors and
Elsas attempt at raising Chet and Bruce. At the heart of The Big Rock Candy Mountain is the
continual, tantalizing search for success and the chasing of this insuring through the promise of
the American Dream. I argue that Stegner is elucidating the greatest triumph of the American
ideology the game that all must participate in. The game consists of the propaganda that asserts
that all participants are equal and have equal opportunity at achieving success, given enough
hard work8. Furthermore, this game must include the competition for success and the national
narrative that is crafted through the sharing of these trials in the chase for the realization of the
American Dream. In the end, it is the violence that distinguishes the frontier that drives the
domestic construct titled the family to implosion9, and the few survivors become the

Doan 5
treasonous prophets of the brave new world, able to see everything as no less nor no more than
what they veridically are.
Bo Mason, father of the family, and masculine boy. He is the epitome of the American
struggle (not Dream) no matter how many of his fantastical plots of financial security fail, Bo
always manages to make new ones. Bo has the capacity to continue searching for fulfillment, for
economic success. Stegner writes about Bo, saying Bo looked out over fields of flax in flower,
acres and acres of blue, and then his brewery job, full of travelling as it was, seemed trivial,
picayune, confining. He wanted breath in his lungs (Stegner, 35). The exuding restlessness in
Bo demonstrates a willingness, above all things a willingness to risk, to work, and to
(hopefully) receive. Bo sees the frontier as a mere competitive space in the frontier, all workers
are equalized, and their success depends on their imagination, opportunities presented, and the
hard work that they pour into their lives.
Bos nature elucidates an American game to us in his representation of a common
worker, Bos universal experience is able to say something about this elusive game. In the
beginning, all are purportedly equal. Workers are given equal chance at reaching that candy
mountain, provided that they work hard, out do their competition, and seize any opportunities
that they may be provided with. However, Bo sees that no equality truly exists to succeed,
another man must fall. Bos spirit thus illustrates a daily violence violence amongst similar
competitors for the same resources and the same kinds of success in the pursuit of the happy
mountain.
This violence has everlasting effects on those that enter the game. In most cases, people
become quickly indoctrinated, and become avid participators in this struggle for realization and
fulfillment. There are others, however, who are so profoundly affected by a violence against their
lives and integrity that they break away. These become the prophets of the new world, through
the destruction of the basic unit of life the family. When the family, an integral part of the new
prophets biological understanding and ideology, is erased from existence, driven to nonunderstanding, and humiliated through failure despite participation, those that are left in the
violent, stormy wake of distress have two paths. The first is to become utterly lost in the turmoil
and to sink beneath the surface the other is the freedom of flight, through the casting off of
such biology. And when the prophets then look back, they see everything. They see how the
discarding of biology that leads to prophetic wisdom biology which is the necessary granter of
right and equal opportunity. They see the national narrative that is continually being refined,
forgotten, remembered, and selected in the effort of constructing a perfect, exceptionally superior
international history. And the prophets themselves are formed because of this history is built on
the American dream, the dream that crushes competitors and elevates those lucky enough to have
made it through. Perhaps in this way the game itself is being unwound by this knowledge, only
to have itself become propagated through various ideological techniques. So perhaps Bruce is
correct, when he prophetically reflects on his own coming of age and formation and necessary
trials, in saying that perhaps that was what it meant, all of it. It was good to have been along and
to have shared it. There were things he had learned that could not be taken away from him.
Perhaps it took several generations to make a manHe was the only one left to fulfill that
contract and try to justify the labor and the harshness and the mistakesand that responsibility
was so clearly his10 (Stegner, 638).

Doan 6
Wor[l]d Work Part 1:
Subversion: the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
Origins from Latin subvertere meaning to turn from below.
Subversion is not the same thing as treason. Subversion involves working inside the system,
versus treasonous self-removal from the system. In some cases, subversion is more successful,
because of the unique interaction that one has with the authority of an institution. In others,
subversion is not successful at all, because being in close contact to the ideology of the system
constantly brings in the danger of being convinced by such ideology that any and all modernities
constructed are natural.
[Material/Real]ization: become actual fact, happen. Appear or be present when expected.
Appear in bodily form. Represent or cause to appear in bodily or physical form. An act of
becoming fully aware of something as a fact. The achievement of something desired or
anticipated. An actual form given to a concept or work. The conversion of an asset into cash. A
sale of goods.
To materialize such is the goal of every pioneer. Not so much the realization of their American
dream, but the materialization and bodily rewards for their diligence is what is desired. Pioneers,
and all those who work on the frontier edge, are greedy people, and only deem the frontier
worthy of work if it yields results. Similarly, the frontier only accepts those pioneers that are able
to gleam a physical benefit from taxing labor and exhausting effort.
Capital: the city or town that functions as the seat of government and administrative center of a
country or region. A place associated more than any other with a specified activity or product.
Wealth in the form of money or assets owned by a person or organization or available for a
purpose such as starting a company or investing. The excess of a companys assets over its
liabilities. People who possess wealth and use it to control a societys economic activity. A
valuable resource of a particular kind.
Capital is an interesting idea. All people, whether engaged in a civilization, forging the edges of
it through working the frontier soil, or exiting completely, desire to accrue capital. Be it social,
monetary, spiritual, or temporal capital, those who understand that capital serves as the seat of
power and the reward of assets are the most successful. Their ability to understand how it is that
capital drives society allows those thinkers and muses to validate their own participation, and to
empathize with those who are either brave enough or stupidly foolish enough to dare break from
the system and game.
Profit: a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount
spent in buying, operating, or producing. Advantage, benefit.
O, profit. Profit, at least at first glance, seems to be only voiced in the language of economy and
finances. However, profit is a bargaining token, and a pledge of pride. When one is able to make
profit, he or she is declaring that they are efficient enough workers that their labor yields more
gain than went into the work. More social capital is gained, and with profit, smart workers can

Doan 7
become even more proficient. However, there are those who squander their profit, which often
leads to the ruining of potential, and the fleeing of dreams that escape from quite the slippery
fingertips.
Revolution: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. A
dramatic and wide-reaching change in conditions, attitudes or operation. The movement of an
object in a circular course about another object, axis, or center.
Revolution is the epitome of treason. When revolution occurs, there have been enough eyes
opened, and enough seekers who have analyzed the game. When revolution appears on the
horizon, we know that there was been a flux towards those who are dangerously on the brink of
too much knowledge and not enough action. And with revolution, we see the hopelessness of
attempting to break the game in any manner. Because with revolution, always new modernities
are established, and new hegemonies begin to make new rules for the game. Eventually, the
game will be challenged again, by those who have too much curiosity, and the vicious cycle will
laugh in the face of all involved.
Evolution: the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have
developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth. The gradual development of an
object or idea.
Evolution is so commonly accepted in the scientific academia that people are called foolish when
they dispute the validity of the evolutionary theory. However, when evolution is applied to
social currency, all become nervous. We would like to think that humans are the fittest, the most
civilized, most advanced species on the planet. And extending, our Western expansion is merely
the evolution of this civilization and the purifying of barbaric lands into that of the holy dream.
But when examining evolution, we see that evolution merely says that all life developed from
other forms, and that allele frequencies change over time. To apply to our discussion of the
frontier, we say that the frontier is merely a new form of civilization, and that worries many
because of its blatant disregard to the convention that humans always get better.
Transfer/Trade: move from one place to another. Make over the possession of property, rights,
or responsibilities to another. The action of buying and selling goods and services. A job
requiring manual skills and special training.
Transfers are made daily. Trades are made daily. They form the basis of economy, currency,
value, and philosophy in our society. We cannot ponder on the morality of actions without
considering the trades of each action. We are limited in evolutionary direction because of fitness
tradeoffs. We are limited in social currency because there is a cap on the emotional, mental, and
spiritual transfers that can be made, and the people who can make them. More importantly, there
are those who are able to oversee the transfers of these currencies, and in doing so, limiting both
themselves and all those who are engaged in participation.
Antiquities: the ancient past especially the period of classical and other human civilizations
before the Middle Ages. An object, building or work of art from the ancient past. Great age.
Origins from Latin antiquus meaning old, former.

Doan 8

Antiquities are a reminder of history. Antiquities examine us they study our method of reading
history, writing it, representing it, reproducing it, and learning from it. Strangely, antiquities are
most likely disappointed. As reminders of history, they admonish us, warn us against the dangers
of allowing singular groups to write history. And yet, we do. Victors always write histories.
Elitists always write histories. The exceptionalism that is present in all national narratives is the
sole factor in the writing of a national history.
Intermediates: something that comes between two things in time, place, character, etc. A person
at an intermediate level of knowledge or skill. A chemical compound formed by one reaction and
then taking part in another.
Intermediates in chemistry are unique species that are formed and consumed in the process of a
reaction. In such a manner, intermediates on the social diamond are so utterly neutral that their
mediocrity and normality offers no chance for uniqueness uniqueness which is ultimately the
factor of survival in the frontier. As such, intermediates deserve to be converted, and the game
recognizes this. In such a way, intermediates either become elites, or the pioneering poor. And if
intermediates can fit into neither of these categories, then they are shunted out, to fend for
themselves and last for as long as they can without a hegemonic game.
Transform: make a marked change in the form, nature, or appearance of. Origins from Latin
transformare meaning changing [between] forms.
To transform the boundaries of anything is never a singular action. To transform the boundary
that is the frontier, one must realize that the frontier is already porous. And in doing so, the
spreading of knowledge, the absorption of knowledge by a greater public begins to push the
frontier. Once more and more know of the civilizing mission that is the frontier space,
civilization moves forward, frontiers die and are reborn, and those that seek success are offered
new chances, new opportunities, new lives. And in the offering of these rejuvenations,
transforming the boundaries becomes easy, controlled, and not at all an autonomous action.
Lineage/Inheritance: direct descent from an ancestor, ancestry or pedigree. A social group
tracing its descent from a single ancestor. A sequence of species each of which is considered to
have evolved from its predecessor. To receive some object that is passed down from previous
generations. Origins from French enheritaunce meaning being admitted as heir.
The lineage of species in evolutionary biology usually shows that over time, each step in
evolution, each speciation, leads to a distinctly different species that is more and more separate
from the original ancestor, but still retains many of the similar traits. Also, interestingly enough,
distinctly non-related species can develop the same traits, so long as natural selection favors the
arising of a new trait. In much the same way, the cultural lineage and inheritance of social niches
in a civilization are traceable in uniqueness. While history is constantly changing the form and
adaptations of each group, they still maintain their original motive, skeleton, and certain
elements of their physiology.

Doan 9
Will: the faculty by which a person decides on and imitates action. Control deliberately exerted
to do something or to restrain ones own impulses. A deliberate or fixed desire or intention. The
thing that one desires or ordains. A legal document containing instructions as to what should be
done with ones money and property after ones death.
Will is the most important and dangerous aspects of civilization, frontiers, and the cycling of
time. Will is the empowering force for the analysis of the game, the breaking free of the game,
and the reproduction of the game. Will is the diligence and ability to chase opportunities,
establish civility, and create successes. Will is also the ability for a civilization to maintain its
integrity, dignity, and status as a professional institution. However, wills are also legal documents
that state what should be done with inheritances. And so, in the act of death of the members in
the horizontal brotherhood, the deathly will wills that the national narrative be constructed, that
exceptionalism be lauded, and the passing down of tradition be honored throughout the vector of
time.
Cognition: the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through
thought, experience, and senses. A perception, sensation, idea, or intuition. Origins from Latin
cognoscere meaning get to know.
Cognition is strictly different than will. While will may be the ability to execute an action, will
need not necessitate the presence of cognition. Cognition is the ability to understand, predict, and
circumvent the ramifications and implications of action. No longer is the national narrative a
blundering story of exceptionally praised death. No, now it is a tale of soldiers and citizens
(simultaneous beings) who decide to die, if only to push the frontier of colonialism and to
continually exalt the nation as the one exceptional entity.

Doan 10
Wor[l]d Work Part 2:
Exceptionalism:
The belief that something is exceptional. The theory that the United States constitutes an
exception to the general economic laws governing national historical development.
Exceptionalism is fascinating because it presents a largely incoherent approach to the problem of
identity. Exceptionalism forms the very basis of American identity. American identity is based on
the concept of distinguishment, that, somehow, Americans are an original crew, not drawing on
customs of old, but forging their own ideologies. In such a way, exceptionalism seems
irreconcilable nothing can exist in understanding, except in the light of ideology. The
assumptions that all participants make in a community form the horizontal base that becomes the
nation without a horizontal brotherhood of communal, imagined, conceptualized ideologies,
nations crumble because of a lack of unity. Thus exceptionalism should not have been an original
idea America developed from European origins and somewhere along the line, became a
distinctly unique form of fraud. Where? Nobody knows. It could have been the Revolution, or
the Civil War, or even April 23rd in the middle of Spring in 1801. I argue that it is now. More on
this in the final Wor[l]d Work paper.
Closure:
the act or process of closing something, especially an institution, thoroughfare, or frontier, or of
being. a sense of resolution or conclusion at the end of an artistic work Origins from Latin claus
meaning closed.
Closure is ending. Closure is beginning. Closure is doubt, and the silencing of doubt. Closure, in
all its forms, presents questions that begin to examine the very legitimacy of establishing a
uniquely convenient end to conflicts, friendships, trials, and movements. Closure is what
distinguishes stories of the classic cast of stereotypes, mountains, and those narratives that seek
to establish a new frontier and the promise of a greener grass.
Classic Realist:
a style that relies on characteristics of a love for the natural world, the great traditions of
Westernization, and the aesthetics of order, beauty, harmony, and completeness. In literary
realism, the closure that is present defines the classical impressionism that forms the basis of
natural philosophy.
Classic Realism is frustratingly natural. Classic realism is the go-to form of narration, but
involves the most complex and mystifying elements of identity construction. Classic realism
constructs caricatures of the people who walk, of those who dream. These stereotypes extend
past being negatively construed they are rather prizes, commodities that are sought, if only to
make the chaotic world right again through simplicity.

Doan 11
Medium/a:
main means of mass communication, especially television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet.
Agency or means of doing something or communicating or expressing an idea. An intervening
substance through which impressions are conveyed. A particular form of storage for digitized
information.
Through the medium of transferal, information is broadcast. That is the function of the cultural
media to propagate the tenets of the cult of society. To drown out all cacophonies of dissent,
and to replace them with harmonies of musicality and progression. Media is the most powerful
tool in a governments arsenal. Done right, the media can make the difference between the
obstruction of a nationalism and the glorification of those special types that help to establish the
basis of natural identity.
Carrier:
a person or thing that carries, holds, or conveys something. A person or company that
undertakes the professional conveyance of goods or people. A person or animal that transmits a
disease-causing organism to others. Typically the carrier suffers no symptoms of the disease.
A carrier, in biology, is an individual that carries the genes for a certain trait, but does not
actively display the phenotype (physical appearance) associated with such a trait. And such
carriers exist elsewhere. In a dialogue between elites, each elite is carrying with him the burden
of the rich to continually grow more and more beyond the reach of the common. Such a burden
is not actively displayed such behavior would be more than despicable. Rather, there is a
mutual understanding between elites that elitism is continually based on and integrates the role of
the common, the lower, the other.
Creativity:
the use of imagination or original ideas. Original production of artistic, literary, or musical
works.
The bane of existence, of order, of governments is creativity. Only through creativity are the
treasonous able to find the ability to revolt. Only through creativity is treason applicable to all
situations. Only through creativity is the cycle renewed. As such, because each modernity seeks
to maintain its presence for the longest period of time, it seeks to suppress the creativity of its
participants. The danger of thinking outside of the norm leads to the danger of a new norm and
the dissolution of a previous modernity.
Debt:
something, typically money, that is owed or due. The state of owing money. A feeling of
gratitude for a service or favor. Origins from Latin debitum meaning something owed or
necessarily returned.

Doan 12

While profit and wealth forms an integral component of constructing an elite, so too does the
economic concept of debt. Debt is negative money it is owed from one to another. It is the
tradeoff between two parties, one of which is giving goods, while the other is transacting in the
form of some monetary currency. The debt occurs when either side cannot deliver, and begets a
promise to, in the future, return the debt. Reciprocal altruism at its finest, truly. When debt acts
on two parties, it is a mutual promise that, one way or another, the goods that will be given up
will be eventually balanced. If not, the law prosecutes to the full extent that is deemed punitive
enough for the deliberate discarding of the honor formed in a debt.
Praise:
to express warm approval of or admiration of. Express respect and gratitude and faith to a deity,
especially in song. The act of worship, admiration, love for a deity. Origins from Latin pretium
meaning price.
To praise is to laud. To laud is to propagate. And to propagate is to participate. Whenever one is
praised, it is for the exemplary conformity to those regulations that are so strictly normal that
stigma is attached to every single one of the treasonous. To be praised is to receive the highest
reward for a faithful attachment to the identity-creating machine that is known as a nation. Praise
is sought after, whether in the form of social recognition, contribution, or love. And in doing so,
we reveal that these ideals, these rewards, are merely tools by a moral entity in order to enforce
submission and legality in a state and all its endeavors.
Ghost:
an apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living,
typically as a nebulous image. A faint trace of something. A secondary image produced by a fault
in an optical system. Origins from Old English gast meaning soul, spirit.
The Holy Ghost, also known as the Host or Spirit one of the three components of the mystery
of faith and the holy triune/trinity. One of the most abstract concepts in all of Christianity, the
Holy Ghost is the embodiment of love, faith, will, and the ability to perform miracles through the
word of God. Of course, in a more literal sense, ghosts are the physical manifestation of an
ancestral lineage. Ghosts represent the lingering thoughts of those that came before, knowledge
that must be imparted on the youthful inheritors of the world, and the faith that some higher
divinity will protect their actions and validate their ramifications.
Synapomorphy:
the possession by two organisms of a characteristic that is derived from one characteristic in an
organism from which they both evolved. Origins from Greek syn-apo-morphe literally meaning
together away from form.
In biology, a synapomorphy is a trait that distinguishes an entire ancestry, with a common
ancestor and all of its descendants. So too do synapomorphies exist in the realm of fantastic

Doan 13
nationalism. We can construct a phylogeny of culture and nations based on synapomorphies
tracing back the evolution of modernities that involve exceptionalism, democracy, constitutional
sanctions, and a clear colonial empiricism. With this approach, we might actually be able to
confirm exceptional America, or at the very least, unique America. Unique America has
synapomorphies that are shared with other nations, but even a single derived trait is all that is
needed in order to cross the threshold of speciation and establish a new nation.
Companion:
a person with whom one spends a lot of time or with whom one travels. A person who shares
the experiences of another, especially when unpleasant or unwelcome. One of a pair of things
intended to complement each other. A member of the lowest grade of certain orders of
knighthood. From Latin companis meaning literally together with bread.
We are companions on the journey. This common line from a Christian song revels in the
presence of competition, participation, and faith. The journey itself is only evident through the
common tribulations. Drawing from imagined communities, every single participant in the
horizontal brotherhood of the sovereign state remains connected only through an imagination of
roles. Only through the commonality between brothers and companions, fighters and comrades is
the nation able to resurrect itself in war, crisis, salvation. And the nation becomes cemented on
the death. Death is then glorified, because the nation rejoices when one companion sacrifices his
life in the defense of the nation. The nation is able to continue and indeed strengthens itself, if
only because of the collective discarding of companions on the journey in the vector of time and
progression.

Doan 14
Wor[l]d Work Part 3:
Victory: an act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game or other competition.
Origins from Latin victoria.
Victory is winning. But more than that, it is euphoria in the rawest form. Victory spans not only
the competitive exclusion of other parties, but the glorification of an ultimatum participate to
the fullest extent, or be marginalized in the stigma of defeat.
Saloon: a public room or building used for a specified purpose. A place where alcoholic drinks
may be bought and drunk. A large public room for use as a longue on a ship. A luxurious railroad
car used as a lounge or restaurant or as private accommodations. Origins from Italian salone
meaning large hall.
Saloons are like salons, but not. Salons are places of discussion. Saloons are places of discussion.
However, I argue that saloons are so much more rewarding than salons in the haze of alcohol,
violence is readily dished out, withheld secrets become common knowledge, and embarrassing
emotion make the air stagnant. And in saloons are promises made, laws broken, bonds changed,
and lives altered.
Purity: freedom from adulteration or contamination. Freedom from immorality. Origins from
Latin purus meaning pure.
Purity is overrated. Does it ever exist? A wholehearted, delighted no. Especially with regards to
that freedom aspect. Nothing is ever truly free from immorality it is not something dire like
everyone has evil but merely that morals are fluid spaces. Morals are never defined, merely
reflected and refracted in such a way that it fits the situation. So when we say purity, what are we
hc
really doing? We hold up a smoke mirror, do the fish-eye refraction, and bend the to our
desires and our stigmas.
Slave: a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. A person who
works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation. A person who is excessively
dependent upon or controlled by something. A device, or part of one, that is directly controlled
by another. Origins from Latin sclava meaning Slavic (captive).
Slavery is, I would say, a bit worse than servitude. The complete and utter domination of one will
by another is a horrible thing and I say it almost never occurs. The dampening of spirits is
always there, granted, but the true form of slavery? No, almost never. In very few circumstances
are the spirits of one so completely and utterly broken down that identity becomes either
superfluous or fragmented. In an idealized history, identity is presented then, because those
subjugating whips are thus translating an inherent appreciation into those who burn in the sun.
Rhetoric: the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of
speech and other compositional techniques. Language designed to have a persuasive or

Doan 15
impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful
content. Origins from Greek rhetorike meaning a speaker, a forensic advocator.
Right now I am, at least trying to, using rhetoric. Rhetoric is employed in every single physical,
metaphysical, spiritual, social, economic, cultural, and technological signifier. Nothing exists
outside the realm of rhetoric at least nothing that is understood. That is important, because we
understand nothing that is not making an argument, that is trying to slather its own ideology onto
our impressionable selves.
Compensation: something, typically money, awarded to someone as a recompense for loss,
injury, or suffering. The action or process of awarding someone money as a recompense for loss,
injury, or suffering. The money received by an employee from an employer as a salary or wages.
Something that counterbalances or makes up for an undesirable or unwelcome state of affairs. In
Psychology, the process of concealing or offsetting a psychological difficulty by developing in
another direction. Origins from Latin compensare meaning weigh against.
Compensation is everything we do nothing for free. In fact, it would be the most stupid and
daring thing to do anything for free everything has a cost, and benefits are detracted from
without return. However, to weigh against an action, one needs an appropriate compensation. In
contemporary America, its the promise of being treated equally, having freedom of speech
(which really isnt there), and having the capacity to turn fortune on its head, if only to make
ones own narrative.
Understanding: the ability to understand something, comprehension. The power of abstract
thought, intellect. An individuals perception or judgment of a situation. Sympathetic aawareness
or tolerance. An informal or unspoken agreement or arrangement. The ability to be
sympathetically aware of other peoples feelings. Tolerance and forgiveness. Having good insight
or good judgment.
To understand something is to, well, understand it. How does one examine understanding if
understanding does not have a trackable origin and no defining genesis moment with which we
can critically evaluate our own understanding of our understanding? Thats a lot of no
understanding right there. That doesnt make sense. Aha. That right there was it. When we say
this does not make sense or this is jargon that does not need to be understood we are victims
victims of our own laziness and intolerance of ambition. Paradoxically, we cannot exist without
ambition in the game, so how is that we can simply dismiss our lack of comprehension so
lightly? The answer is really quite understandable. We cannot. We do not dismiss our lack of
comprehension what we are doing is broadcasting it, and seeking enlightenment and linguistic
innovation, such that we can better understand our own failure in the (un)equal promises of the
American struggle.
Tolerance: The ability or willingness to put up with something, in particular the existence of
opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. The capacity to endure continued
subjection to something, especially a drug, transplant, antigen, or environmental conditions,
without adverse reaction. Diminution in the bodys response to a drug after continued use. An

Doan 16
allowable amount of variation of a specified quantity, especially in the dimensions of a machine
or part. Origins from Latin tolerare meaning bearing hardship or pain.
Tolerance is quite interesting just the word itself invokes a begrudging acceptance of those that
are different. It is not quite understanding, no. Rather, it is the active refusal of rights of observed
differences in saying something is tolerated, we see that some capacity to be different is
merely being suppressed and kept alive out of pure, free, benevolent will.
Surrender: to cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority. Give up or
hand over a person, right, or possession, typically on compulsion or demand. To lose a point,
game, or advantage. To abandon oneself entirely to a powerful emotion or influence.
To surrender is to give up entirely to stop fighting, and to stop believing. That is, to stop
believing in that glorious promise that is stated throughout Americana and its ideology
surrendering is however, far more complicated than a mere walking away. No, surrendering is
the greatest affront to the American dream, and the greatest affirmation of it people need to
surrender in order to insult the American dream and the presence of non-success is vital to the
propagation of the game.
Ego: a persons sense of self-esteem or self-importance. The part of the mind that mediates
between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of
personal identity. A conscious thinking subject. Origins from Latin ego meaning I.
The frontier can be spelled frontegoer no longer is the frontier about the bodily individual
himself, but now about the pride that comes hand in hand with the diligence of pushing. One can
only work on the frontegoer if one understands reality the reality that some sort of integrity and
esteem (or the active seeking of such pegooneering spegoregots) must drive success.
Chimaera: in Greek mythology, a fire breathing female monster with a lions head, a goats
body, and a serpents tail. Any mythical animal with parts taken from various animals. A thing
that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve. An organism
containing a mixture of genetically different tissues.
A chimaera is a conglomeration it is an entity so far beyond recognition that its very identity
crosses into the boundaries of divine and monstrous. It takes the best from separate identities and
in crafting them together, creates something that is neither a true identity nor unholy. And so it is
that every single one of the pioneers is a chimaera willing to take identities of others and
fragment their own, to become something as divinely monstrous as an amalgamation.
Family: a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. A group of
people related to one another by blood or marriage. The children of a person or couple. A person
or people related to one and so to be treated with a special loyalty or intimacy. A group of people
united in criminal activity. A principal taxonomic category that ranks above genus and below
order. A group of objects united by a significant shared characteristic. All the descendants of a
common ancestor. A race or group of peoples from a common stock. Origins from Latin
famulus meaning servant.

Doan 17

Families are the bread and butter of society literally. They are the basic building blocks for
action, economy, morality, ideology, and nationalism, just as the cell is the building block for
life. Families are indispensable as propagation tools, anchors, and soldiers for the American
frontier.
Home: the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.
The family or social unit occupying a home. A house or an apartment considered as a
commercial property. A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which
it originates. An institution for people needing professional care or supervision. Ones own
country and its domestic affairs.
Defend and define the home. That is the rallying war cry of the squatters. That is the motto of the
dons. To defend the home against those who might have the capacity to do harm true defense is
necessary to rid the world of evil. Of course, we cannot simply defend the home. No, we need to
pass on the role of defense to our progeny through the definition of the home as the ultimate
sanctity of domesticity and nationalism, an impregnable fortress that reigns supreme over all
other instititutions.
Sympathy: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone elses misfortune. The formal expression of
pity through condolences. Understanding between people. Common feeling. Support in the form
of shared feelings or opinions. Agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim. A favorable
attitude. The state or fact of responding in a way similar or corresponding to an action
elsewhere.
To have sympathy is much less challenging than to have empathy sympathy is the mere feeling
of pity or sorrow. Condolences are easy to dole out in large quantities and convenient too.
Empathy is much more difficult, because at the heart of empathy is the willingness to and active
pursuit of understanding on the most intimate levels.
Harmony: the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and
chord progressions, having a pleasing effect. The quality of forming a pleasing and consistent
whole. An arrangement of the four Gospels, or of any parallel narratives, that presents a single
continuous narrative text. Agreement or concord. Origins from Greek harmos meaning joint.
The concord of souls is a harmonic melody that lends itself to a musical performance. This
performance is daily, instantaneous and all encompassing. However, if, for the sake of the nation,
dissonance is created, a mere slight of the hand and all is returned to normal, to the lilting tones
of the harpsichord of America and its lyre of ideology. Just as the bow draws across the four
strings of a violin, so too does the production of culture string together basic statements into a
harmonious argument.
Counterfeit: an exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive
or defraud. A sham. A fraudulent imitation of something else, a forgery, especially money.
Origins from Latin contrafacere meaning to make in opposition.

Doan 18
Counterfeits make the world go round we scam others all the time in an underhanded attempt
at getting ahead in the game. We forge identities and attempt to be what is not truly us and
others prove that selves are worth emulating. In the game of the frontier, those that can
counterfeit, that can fraud, are not escalating into treason, but rather are embracing the spirit of
the struggle few can succeed, but all have the opportunity, and one must make the most out of
it, even if it involves dealing failure to others in an underhanded manner.

Doan 19
Endnotes:
#1.) This paper is supposed to encompass all of these topics, but for the sake of length I will limit
my discussion in this paper to Comanche Moon. Therefore the title Eyelids and Difference
refers to Comanche Moon, National History Making refers to Blood Meridian, and The
Violent Game refers to The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
#2.) An experiment that I conducted was hilarious. On the path from Red Square to Drumheller
Fountain, I wandered. Seeing a person, I would walk up and say word for word, Hello there.
You just looked so interesting, different, and unique, and I just wanted to say hello to such a fine
example of diversity at our University. Observing their reactions, I cracked up inside. Most of
the time, people thought that I was a converter, a religious freak. Other times, they ignored me.
The few gems that I did find shot back sarcastic replies and asked if I was being racist. And so, a
first-hand experience at how we dont understand the language of difference. We constantly laud
diversity as a positive presence at the University, but the more we use that term, the more we are
marginalizing the minorities and the groups who are not major enough to make the elite
decisions as to who are minorities and who are majorities.
#3.) This statement too can be a bit problematic. Nobody can ever completely get rid of frontiers
(the Judge competes with this, but even he is limited in the end). However, Scull is able to, at
least temporarily, suppress or move past the presence of physical and national frontiers to be able
to read the lines of difference that are traced through the movement of all agents in cosmological
realities.
#4.) I will later argue about how the Judges approach to prophetic understanding of difference is
through the construction of narratives, histories, and national exceptionalisms. Also, to tie it all
together, the game will be explicated through the Big Rock Candy Mountain, and the various
violent struggles that Bo Mason goes through in his pioneering quest for the understanding of
and success in this elusive game. The game incorporates all of these elements the necessity
of biology as a limiting factor (and how the Judges immortality is why he is unlimited), national
narratives as constructed by terms of difference, death of knowledge, and recreation of
knowledge, and the cultural struggle with the promise of the American narrative.
#5.) By last of the true, I am referring to the Judges label to the man as the last of the true.
What this seems to suggest is the mans understanding of the mechanisms behind the Judges
presence, actions, and ramifications.
#6.) Last year, I wrote a paper on the selective remembrance of the Vietnam War and the
construction of a racial other integrated into an exceptionalist narrative of American identity and
victory. This paper draws heavily on these ideas and terms from Benedict Andersons7 Imagined
Communities. You can find it attached.
#7.) Benedict Anderson was on campus earlier this year. Unfortunately, I didnt know that I had
to RSVP, thus losing a chance to attend a talk by this great literary influence. A bit ironic, in that
his talk was about shame.

Doan 20
#8.) After all, everything is tied to biology. We are given inherent rights through biology, and
more importantly, biology is sanctioned by the American ideology.
#9.) Not explosion.
#10.) And it is so clearly ours now.