Student

The Nature Role of Violence and its Presentation

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are not your typical western heroes. When we are introduced to the film, we learn that these characters have quite the reputation of being quite the gun slingers and robbers. Instead of shooting the man at the poker table, Sundance shoots the man's gun off instead. When the man accuses Sundance of cheating he stands up with his gun ready, Sundance and Butch calmly handle the situation waiting for him to draw first. These types of situations say a lot about these characters. They don't resort to shooting unless they have to. Although they are two bit criminals, they are humane at the same time.

When Butch and Sundance meet up with their fellow criminal partners one assumes his position of being the leader and challenges Butch to either a knife or a gun fight. Butch chooses a knife fight but never kills the larger and stronger man. I'm sure that either of them could have gun downed the man without a problem, but instead they handle it without any casualties.

The film doesn't have its first death until the men are caught up by the marshals who pull up on them unexpectedly. Even when the gang robs the train, they plead for the man to open the door unless he wants to get blown up. The entire time after the first shooting, they are chased by the law. Although they are somewhat evenly matched, the gang chooses to split hoping to get away. Still when their cornered at the rocks they opted to jump instead of shooting the marshals. But when Butch and Sundance go to Bolivia, it's an entire different story. After the first robbery, the men just scare the Bolivian law, but later when they are shot at they never hesitate to shoot back. There is another instance where they are robbed by Bolivian bandits, but plead to them to just give the money back. After the Bolivian robbers draw