Haunted by a Face, Part I
The novel begins with a metaphor that extends across two sentences and effectively sets the stage for what will be the driving force behind the narrative.
“A FACE haunted Cameron—a woman's face. It was there in the white heart of the dying campfire; it hung in the shadows that hovered over the flickering light; it drifted in the darkness beyond.”
The Eruption of Mexico
According to Thorne, Mexico can effectively be described using a very simple metaphor. What do you get when you combine committed revolutionaries, underpaid soldiers, mercenaries, raiders, bandits, thieves, terrified women and a mostly poor population?
“Mexico is like some of her volcanoes—ready to erupt fire and hell!”
Geography in the Western
One of the defining characteristics of the western genre is the presence of vast, untamed wilderness at the mercy of nature which sometimes inspires dread and at other times awe. A western adventure that fails to bring the majesty of that time in that place to life is bound to go unread. Zane Grey’s novels have never gone unread:
“The day opened for them in a red and green hell of rock and cactus. Like a flame the sun scorched and peeled their faces.”
People in the Western
Just as a rich description conveying the grandness of the land is a necessity to the western genre, so is there almost always a direction thematic connection between that land and the type of people driven to live there. Metaphor and simile is a writer’s best friend for making this connection which underlines for the reader out of time how character and geography were so often intertwined in the era of the expansion of the western frontier.
“Nell was sunshine most of the time, but, like the sun-dominated desert, she was subject to strange changes, willful, stormy, sudden.”
Haunted by a Face, Part II
The metaphor which kicks off the book soon proves to be a recurring one which underlines divulges that the use of the term “haunted” is not entirely hyperbolic, but is iteral and quite accurate enough to almost call into question whether the face is metaphorical at all; perhaps Cameron actually is seeing it:
“Another face haunted Cameron's—a woman's face. It was there in the white moonlit shadows; it drifted in the darkness beyond; it softened, changed to that of a young girl, sweet, with the same dark, haunting eyes of her mother.”
