The Virginian

2 Pages 600 Words

The Virginian’s Growth as a Character


Good novelists carefully develop their main characters. Events and other characters in the novel shape the personality of the main character. In his novel, The Virginian, Owen Wister’s main character, the Virginian is bland and unattached early in the story, but gradually develops a complex personality.
The Virginian is portrayed in the beginning of the story as just another cowpuncher with no apparent personality other than a boring rustler. As a guest of Judge Henry’s arrives in Medicine Bow, the Virginian is sent to greet him. As he introduces himself to the guest, he demonstrates the obvious attitude of a hired hand. He carries himself in a rough, straightforward manner. He is a man used to hard work and a hard life. To the guest, the Virginian describes the next leg of the journey in such a matter of fact fashion that the guest is shocked to learn that this next step is 263 miles. The guest sees a “handsome, ungrammatical son of the soil”(9). At the same time, however, the Virginian’s courtesy and ability to take social cues from the guest, leads the guest to decide that the Virginian is one of “the creature[s] we call a gentleman…. that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type” (10). Wister reveals both sides of the Virginian’s personality by allowing the Virginian to be aware of things other than the immediate concerns of a cowboy. Wister shows the cowboy’s versatile mentality as he notices “pleasant trees of the ranch” (194) and follows the code of chivalry, “Stand on your laigs… and say you’re a liar!”(71) while protecting the integrity of the teacher. At


some points the cowboy may lose his temper, while at other times he sits and stares at the open landscape, dreamy eyed as the prairie flows to the mountainside.
Wister further reveals the growth and development of the Virginian through his letters. The letter he wr...