The Ox-Bow Incident [Paperback]

Set in 1885,The Ox-Bow Incidentis a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature. As Wallace Stegner writes, [Clark's] theme was civilization, and he recorded, indelibly, its first steps in a new country.Wallace Stegner's many books includeCrossing to Safety,Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, and the Pulitzer Prize winningAngle of Repose.

1. Many consider The Ox-Bow Incident to be the first serious Western novel in American literature, and Clark's novel wholly overturns many of the conventions of the typical Western or "cowboy story" (in which conceits like shoot-outs, the triumph of good over evil, and the figure of the cowboy hero tend to loom large). Discuss the ways in which Clark transforms stereotypes about the West.

2. How do you understand the events leading up to the novel's culminating moment, the lynching? What are the causes of the lynching as these unfold throughout the work? Is the train of events Clark delineates anywhere reversible?

3. Discuss the frontier society described by Clark. What impressions do you glean of the way life was lived on the frontier? What seem to be some of the distinguishing features of frontier life? Are there aspects of life on the frontier that came as a surprise to you?

4. The mob, and ideas about mob violence, figure centrally in the novel. What, for Clark, is the mob?

5. Discuss the importance of the physical environment for Clark: landscape, weather, the way land is experienced. How does Clark put the physical elements to work in his book? How important arel“p