Streets of Laredo
Streets of Laredo
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summaries & Analyses
Quizzes
NEWReading Tools
Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, suicidal ideation, death by suicide, child abuse, child death, animal cruelty, animal death, racism, gender discrimination, ableism, sexual harassment, sexual assault, illness, and death.
The Railroad
The railroad is a central symbol in the novel, representing the inexorable march of Eastern civilization and corporate order upon the frontier, foregrounding The Tensions of Industrialization. The arrival of the railroad replaces the old world of cattle drives and independent rangers, and introduces a world governed by contracts, schedules, and distant corporate authority. The plot is set in motion by the railroad’s need to protect its assets, hiring Captain Call to hunt a bandit threatening their profits.
This transformation of the legendary Ranger into a corporate employee, accountable to an accountant like Brookshire and a remote executive like Colonel Terry, signifies the death of the old code of frontier justice. Early in the novel, Call remarks, “Five smart train robbers could bust every railroad in this country” (13). This observation foreshadows how the West’s new infrastructure creates new vulnerabilities.
Guns
The recurring motif of guns highlights the contrast between ornate, symbolic weapons and simple, functional ones to explore the tension between The Myth of the Frontier Hero and its grim reality. Early on, Colonel Terry sends Captain Call a “fancy, engraved Colt revolver” as a gift (14), a weapon intended to flatter a legendary Ranger and emphasize the Colonel’s wealth and influence. Call, however, pragmatically rejects it, stating, “I’ve no place to keep a fancy weapon. I’d have to deposit it in a bank, and I prefer to avoid banks” (14-15). His refusal is a rejection of the Eastern, romanticized image of a gunslinger, as well as the industrialized institutions that come with it. He prefers his plain, reliable rifle, a tool for a dirty job, not a trophy for a celebrated hero.
Joey’s weapon, a modern, technologically superior German rifle with a telescope sight, points to a new, impersonal, and deadlier form of violence that renders the old frontier skills of the quick draw or the close quarters fight obsolete. He kills from a distance, unseen, turning his victims into mere targets. This technological shift hints that Call’s practical but ultimately outdated methods are no match for a new kind of killer wielding a new kind of weapon.
The Devil Pig of Crow Town
The Devil Pig of Crow Town symbolizes the moral rot and scavenging brutality of the frontier in its final, lawless death throes. This “giant feral hog” that roams the outlaw settlement is rumored to be unkillable and subsists on the corpses of the town’s casually murdered inhabitants (82). It embodies the amorality of an outlaw world where life is cheap and even the dead are not safe from violation. The pig’s function as the town’s unofficial undertaker is grimly noted by John Wesley Hardin, who suggests a fresh corpse be left for it to consume, an act that would save the 50 cents required for a burial.
The Devil Pig’s presence signifies the complete breakdown of civilization in the West’s darkest corners. Maria’s slaughter of the pig signals her strength and formidable determination. Afoot and alone, she shoots and kills the Devil Pig, an act of shocking violence that disrupts the gendered power structure of Crow Town. Her triumph over the pig demonstrates The Power of Maternal Devotion, casting her as a fierce protector capable of leading Crow Town’s women away from their captive lives and offering them a new start. When a sex worker sees that the pig is dead, she shouts to the other women, “‘She killed the pig! […] She killed the pig!’ The girls looked stunned. They had both feared the pig” (245). Freeing them from this beast that they’ve feared empowers the women of Crow Town to imagine a new life.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events