Violence and hell
For Blake, the West seems like an experience that will be defined by natural vistas and new opportunities, but what he figures out very quickly through experience is that, actually, the West is a wilderness, full of violence and fear, like a concrete experience of hell. He is beset on all sides by death and guns. The train stops and men murder buffalo for nothing before the train continues. When Blake falls in love with a local lady, her ex-boyfriend comes in guns a-blazing. Even Blake has to use violence in this wild terrain.
Industrialization
Blake shares a passion for nature with his namesake, another William Blake with whom he accidentally confuses himself after sustaining an injury that damages his memory. From a limited state of consciousness, a Native American tells him all sorts of fascinating tales about himself, verging on transcendentalism or spiritualism. Blake readjusts his view to look back at industrialization, and he sees the black clouds of the future, the bleakness of metal machinery and oil, and he sees the death of nature.
Spiritual life and reality
Because of a Native American shaman who takes care of him, named "Nobody," Blake learns about the spiritual metaphysic. He experiences himself as a mythic hero, and he connects to the spiritual life that has always been happening. He takes hallucinogenic drugs and experiences the emptiness of ego, and he sees the hellish landscape as a playground for divinity. He decides to make his life near to the ground, setting up his new identity in nature. He is often unable to fathom that such a reality could have sublime vistas of nature and culture, and also hellish landscapes of industry and pollution.
