Friday, November 4, 2011

Tom Outland

Based on your reading of "Tom Outland's Story," how would you describe Tom? What features define him? What does he value?

17 comments:

  1. Tom is a thoughtful young man, who possesses a strong work ethic and intellectual curiosity. He is concerned about the past history of the land and hopes that he can leave a positive legacy for his contemporaries and those who come after. His is also honest and responsible; he could have robbed Roddy blind at the beginning of the book, but instead only accepted breakfast. He also did not risk his task of guarding the herd to explore the blue mesa, but instead waited until the end of his contract to explore the unknown. He is also plan and simple frontiersman who had little connections to the urban life in the capital. He stared superficiality in the face, and sees to the true nature of these façades. He also aims for true purpose and meaning for his life rather than the pursuit of wealth. He was horrified when Roddy sold the artifacts of the blue mesa, for Tom desired for them to be part of the cultural heritage of the people, not objects adorning the inside of a mansion.

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  2. Tom is a boy who values family, friendship, heritage, hard work, and the land. We see his dedication to his work, and also (until the last section) his dedication to his friends Henry and Blake. Tom values their friendship and even calls them his family. Tom is also a boy who is ready for adventure. We feel his longing to explore the Blue Mesa from the first time he mentions it. We see that Tom values heritage, even if it is not his own, by the way he treasures all of the artifacts he finds in Cliff City. Tom feels as if he has finally found a family and a heritage he can call his own, and this is why he is so devestated when all of the artifacts are sold. Tom also values the freedom he has out on the mesa, and understands that there is more to life than money. I believe Tom really is an example of the "American ideal."

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  3. Tom Outland is a delightful character that i have greatly enjoyed getting to know. He starts of in life pretty low, but his willingness to work and consideration of others quickly gain him a family. Tom is also very outgoing, curious, and intelligent. I believe it is these qualities that cause him to search the mesa, which led to the discovery of cliff city. His work ethic once again comes into play as he (with Rod and Henry) spends so many long hours carefully excavating cliff city and tracking every bit of information within his journal. As the story continues and Tom heads off to Washington, we get to see his courage and persistence. It really isn't until he arrives back home that we see him not handle something well. We realize his mistakes as he cares so much about one value (the artifacts) that he forgets to be careful with another (his friend and father-figure Rod). Consistently throughout the story we see that Tom values friends, family, and culture. He distinctly values that very things he originally lacked and pursues these so that other like him will have them. He treasures the idea that culture is not from where you came from but where you are. We see this through him linking the people of cliff city to his heritage, even though Tom himself was not Native American. Over all with his big heart, core values, and persistent courage, Tom shows himself to be a American hero.

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  4. Willa Cather portrays Tom Outland as thoughtful, kindhearted, hardworking, and inquisitive. It is quite obvious that he is very intelligent, yet he does not begrudge hard physical labor. His curious nature leads him to investigate the Blue Mesa and he immediately takes an intense fascination with the city he finds there. Unlike Roddy, Tom sees the value of the Cliff City in a philosophical and cultural sense, rather than an economic one. His "adoption" of the Native American culture is interesting because it reveals Tom's open attitude toward all cultures and all peoples. I also like how Tom creates his special family with Henry and Roddy. His respect and admiration for the land and the Cliff City tribe is also admirable, especially when juxtaposed against the attitudes of most of the people in Washington. Cather certainly tried to create in Tom a representation of the independent, rugged American archetype. In this regard, I believe she succeeded. Tom Outland is an interesting and memorable character and a true American hero.

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  5. I would describe Tom as a hard worker with high values. He puts all of himself into every thing that he does. He treats others with respect and courtesy. He is also searching for something that makes him feel more connected with his surroundings. After his visit to Washington DC, he is forced to re-evaluate his views and he comes to an understanding about how he feels and felt about the work and findings of cliff city.

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  6. Throughout the excerpt, Tom Outland is shown to be a hard-working, dedicated man, whose strong work ethic drives him to see the discovery of the cliff dwellings as more than just a chance for personal gain. While most other people who knew of the discovery, such as Tom’s partner, Rodney Blake, or the curators of the Smithsonian Institute, sought to use the artifacts to advance themselves, Tom gave up a huge amount in an attempt to show the discovery to the rest of the world. As a result of his sacrifice, we can see Tom values more than just personal gain. He values the artifacts because he sees them as a piece of his personal heritage, and because of this, he is unwilling to give them up simply for selfish reasons.

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  7. From the reading of Tom Outland's story I found Tom to be a man who has a strong work ethic and is very aware of his morals and also tries to stick to his beliefs as well as he can. Tom believes that the relics that him and Blake had found together were not theirs for personal gain beside for the feeling of self accomplishment. Tom believed that the ruins of cliff city were the possessions of the people who lived in the country so that could know their history and heritage. Tom also had a different sense of ownership and value than most people around him. He did not believe that the sale of all the artifacts was right because they were not his or Blake's to sell in the first place, and also when he went to D.C. to speak with people at the Smithsonian to see if they would come out to see the ruins and get a professional out to examine the place. However, the people he had gone to see were as interested as he hoped because it did not present any kind of gain for them.

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  8. Tom is a well-meaning, good hearted, hardworking man. He worked very hard and was patient and persistent at keeping the entire herd together, and fulfilling all of his duties his job entailed, even when he wanted to explore the blue mesa. Once he got to explore the mesa, he showed his patience and persistence with carefully excavating the Native American ruins. These features were shown again in Washington, being patient and persistent with everyone he met as he tried to fulfill his goal. These are what really what define him throughout the story. He is this way because he values details and doing a good job with everything he does. He also values having everyone like what he does, and appreciate him.

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  9. Tom seems optimistic, thoughtful, and hard-working. He also possesses a deep appreciation of the land he toils and explores. Tom's lack of flaws make him, from a literary standpoint, an unrealistic character. He represents in many ways the quintessential American frontier hero. This frontier hero character has long held a place in American lore from James Fenimore Cooper's characters to such Hollywood legends as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.

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  10. Throughout the story, Tom is shown as a strong, kind, hardworking, honest man. When times got tough, Tom would ease through difficulties with patience and motivation. Tom would put off his own wants in order to complete a job he was hired to do and also made sure everyone was safe and sounds before he ventured off on his expeditions. After watching out for the cattle, Tom was able to explore the Blue Mesa and not only discover a Cliff City that was connected to its environment but he also discovered his own connection to that same environment after his trip to Washington D.C. Even after coming home to only discover he was cheated and lied to by who he thought was his friend, Tom was still able to value the friends, family, and even culture that still surrounded him.

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  11. Tom Outland reminds me of Tom Sawyer. He is a young curious man with little heritage to claim. Tom values tradition, hard work, and luck. He tends to have good intentions in most of what he does, and you can see his values coming out in the things the tries to defend. Tradition comes out when he places value in the artifacts he digs up. His value in hard work is expressed daily by his nature to not shy away from work. Finally, the more abstract value of luck is shown by how much he relies on it, and his intention to help defend roddy's winnings.

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  12. I would describe Tom Outland as the typical frontier settler of the time period. When Tom views the Blue Mesa and is told that no one has ever reached the top before he becomes fixated with the mesa and wants to "conquer" it. I think this is evident of Tom representing the westward expansion because the movement was started by individuals who had the same urge to "conquer" the unknown.

    It is clear that Tom values culture greatly with the way he treats the Cliff City. Tom spends all of his time trying to preserve the culture of the tribe that used to live in the Blue Mesa showing that he truly cared for their culture.

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  13. Tom Outland is an ambitious man that lacks a sense of belonging. He is a few spirit that is eager to discover new things. This lack of belonging can be attributed to Tom's origin as a pure American, a WASP. Because of this lack of identity Tom finds the Cliff City as a place that belongs to him, not by blood but geographically. Tom values heritage found in places that one belongs to.

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  14. Tom is a boy who looks for a place to belong. To him the cliff city really represents a place where he has heritage and where he is connected, at least geographically, to other people. Tom works hard to form his own makeshift family with Blake because he feels alone in the world. He values his relationship with Blake but also he values the connection and the feeling of just having family even if it is rather makeshift. He tries hard to find something to get rid of the loneliness and listlessness in his life and he thinks that he found that with the cliff city, even though that was all taken away from him by Blake's ruthless capitalism.

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  15. Tom Outland is an uncomplicated, however uncommon, man. All clichés aside, we find Tom as being simply motivated, but for unusual causes from the American materialist viewpoint. He has this instinctive urge to belong, and make others belong. I feel that once that is established, Tom comes off as being very simple. His interactions with others show an eagerness to form friendships, his idealess comes out of a positive disposition in social interaction, and he is hurt by rejection.
    Beyond that, he is simply and cleanly motivated, and self sufficient. He simply moves from place to place, with a single hope to belong: socially, intellectually, or even nationally.

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  16. Tom Outland is a common man with out any values within himself. He searches for a beginning and belonging to anything that he can call home. He looks for it and takes an deep feeling to a culture that he knows nothing about. But, he devotes his time and energy to preserving a history that he really has no clue about. Calls it his own and believes it during the whole story of his discovery in Blue Mesa.

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  17. As far as I can tell, Tom Outland's greatest distinguishing attribute is his reverence for the civilations that came before his. He reveres the ruins in the Blue Mesa and spends a good deal of time there reading Vergil's Aeneid after Blake sells so many of the artifacts. And, even though Cather shows these open indicators, she also make this reverence for elders and elder cultures run through Tom throughout the rest of the story. He even cares for the American heritage more than the director of the Smithsonian Institution does.

    The same could be said about Tom's relationship with Blake. Think about the first chapter in the story, when everyone hates Blake for winning a bunch of money, and Tom helps him get home. Now either Tom is trying to get himself a cut of the money (which is unlikely given that he denies Blake's offer to give him half of the money later in the chapter) or he is genuinely trying to be a caring and nice person.

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