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The Whole Wide World
- 154 statements
- 29 feature instances
- 2 referencing feature instances
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The Whole Wide World | |
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A 1996 biopic about 1930s pulp novelist Robert E. Howard, concentrating on his complicated relationship with schoolteacher Novalyne Price and based on her memoirs.Price (Renée Zellweger), who dreams about becoming a writer herself, works as a Sunday school teacher, but when she meets Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio), her ambitions awake. She admires him and asks him for advice, even though she is appalled by the way in which he handles sexual themes in his stories. He does not share her opinion that good fiction should be true to life in the first place but she interests him as a woman and a friend. When Price fails in her desperate attempts to put an end to an abnormal relationship between Howard and his sickly mother, they break off, and she leaves to Louisiana to continue her teaching career - three weeks before Howard's suicide. Price's book was intended as a response to the prevailing opinions on Howard's life and personality, and the film explores her point of view to analyze Howard's creation and the reasons of his tragic death.Besides being a psychological drama about love which somehow manages to be both mutual and unrequited, the film deals with such issues as: the process of achieving maturity, the nature of the connection between the mentor and his disciple, realist vs. visionary attitude towards fiction, the role of pulp (as opposed to mainstream) fiction in American culture in the 1930s, and artistic activity as a form of escapism triggered by the demands of society. The character of Conan the Barbarian is mentioned a couple of times - and it is suggested that Conan was Howard's simplified and coloured alter ego, which initially served as a channel for venting off his frustration but later became his gateway to insanity. | |
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Dropped link to PulpMagazine: Not a Feature - ITEM | |
| The Whole Wide World | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_12a59731 | type |
Goodbye, Cruel World! | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_12a59731 | comment |
Goodbye, Cruel World!: After Howard's suicide, a short poem about death is found in his typewriter. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_19da8a03 | type |
Incurable Cough of Death | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_19da8a03 | comment |
Incurable Cough of Death: Howard's mother has this. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_1ba17583 | type |
The Ghost | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_1ba17583 | comment |
The Ghost: H. P. Lovecraft is in the narrative, having asked Howard's editor for his address so the two writers might correspond. Howard geeks out about this. Lovecraft never physically appears, and only one line of one of his letters is read for the audience. Justified, as Howard lived in Texas and Lovecraft in Rhode Island - neither were the type to travel extensively and in fact they never met in person. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_26b2747 | type |
Alliterative Title | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_26b2747 | comment |
Alliterative Title: The Whole Wide World | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_3a781509 | type |
Most Writers Are Male | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_3a781509 | comment |
Most Writers Are Male: Howard's fiction is presented as not targeted at female audiences. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_3bc88a7f | type |
Foregone Conclusion | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_3bc88a7f | comment |
Foregone Conclusion: Howard fans and historians will know that his relationship with Price won't end well and he will commit suicide. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_3e8d9cd3 | type |
Historical Hero Upgrade | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_3e8d9cd3 | comment |
Historical Hero Upgrade: The real Robert E. Howard's racism was extremely downplayed in favor of emphasizing his eccentricities as more of a tortured artist and his feelings of being Born in the Wrong Century and Longing for Fictionland. Apologists put forth that racism was normal at the time and would not have been any sort of social difficulty for him. In Novalyne Price's memoirs on which the film is based, she does mention her negative reaction to Howard's racist attitude towards Blacks.note Howard's racism was mild compared to his idol, H.P. Lovecraft's nasty racism. Howard, to be fair, saw even other Caucasian strains such as Mediterraneans and Slavs as "a different blood". For his own reasons, he was specifically fixated on the Picts, in particular, as his ideal of a superior race, a sentiment that he would emphasize with one of his other creations, Bran Mak Morn. However, this particular conversation did not make it into the film. The scene where Novalyne goes off to College has Robert jokingly warning of those people down there (Louisiana) of a "different blood". Whom he was referring to is not specified. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_4023b8c8 | type |
First-Name Basis | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_4023b8c8 | comment |
First-Name Basis: To most everyone, he's "Robert Howard." To Novalyne, he's "Bob." | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_497fde0 | type |
Magnificent Moustaches of Mexico | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_497fde0 | comment |
Magnificent Moustaches of Mexico: Howard seems to have a thing for Mexican sombreros, and at one point grows a large moustache to complete the look. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_4e3d253b | type |
Downer Ending | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_4e3d253b | comment |
Downer Ending: Robert E. Howard, "the greatest pulp fiction writer in the whole wide world," commits suicide. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_5029c444 | type |
Audible Sharpness | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_5029c444 | comment |
Audible Sharpness: When Howard imagines himself to be Conan, you can hear swords clanging as he describes his character to Novalyne. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_62434fe2 | type |
Sanity Slippage | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_62434fe2 | comment |
Sanity Slippage: His mother's worsening health and his own mistakes with Novalyne clearly have this effect on Howard's already questionable mental state. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_63b02752 | type |
Hair-Trigger Temper | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_63b02752 | comment |
Hair-Trigger Temper: Price quickly learns that the most innocuous things might set Howard off on an enraged rant. Novalyne, by contrast, has a tighter reign on her temper, but blows up bigger and stays mad longer than Bob. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_6d332aea | type |
Driven to Suicide | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_6d332aea | comment |
Driven to Suicide: Howard, when he learns that his mother's illness is incurable and she's unlikely to ever awaken from her coma. Indeed, she dies days later. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_73dd919c | type |
Genteel Interbellum Setting | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_73dd919c | comment |
Genteel Interbellum Setting: Taking place between 1932 and 1936 in a small town in Texas. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_7e081ea0 | type |
Slice of Life | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_7e081ea0 | comment |
Slice of Life: This is what Novalyne wants to write. Howard considers this nonsense, as real life is what everyone has, but something fantastical is unique and different. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_99b22790 | type |
The Knights Who Say "Squee!" | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_99b22790 | comment |
The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Bob flips out in the best way possible when he learns H.P. Lovecraft is a fan and wants to write to him. Later, he's quite proud of Lovecraft calling him "the modern master of fantasy." | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_aff1ee2e | type |
Small Reference Pools | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_aff1ee2e | comment |
Small Reference Pools: Howard's Conan stories are the only ones directly mentioned in the film, and those are mentioned extensively, since they're likely the only Howard stories a casual audience would have heard of. Howard does mention a "boxing yarn" going through his head at one point, and Howard wrote many such stories for other publications. He later talks about selling stories to three different magazines in the same month, but only the Conan story sold to Weird Tales is described (Conan fans will immediately recognize it as Red Nails). | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_aff1ee2e | featureApplicability |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_b04fdcc4 | type |
Loners Are Freaks | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_b04fdcc4 | comment |
Loners Are Freaks: This is the point which Novalyne makes, when she tries to convince Robert that he should work on his social life and stop being so misanthropic. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_b58c51d8 | type |
My Beloved Smother | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_b58c51d8 | comment |
My Beloved Smother: Howard and his mum. Aside from his slavish devotion to her, there's some implication that she deliberately tried to keep Novalyne away from him. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_bedae243 | type |
Relative Button | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_bedae243 | comment |
Relative Button: Results from Howard's Freudian Excuse (without the murder part). | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_de5f028b | type |
Barbarian Hero | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_de5f028b | comment |
Barbarian Hero: Conan, obviously. In a way, Howard himself. By the time the narrative meets him, he's long since given up trying to fit in among the people of his small Texas town, because he could just never quite figure out how to fit in or (perhaps) why he should even bother. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_e150c4c7 | type |
Manchild | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_e150c4c7 | comment |
Manchild: Howard, albeit a more charming example than standard for this trope. In one scene, all the same, a deeply frustrated Novalyne calls him out for making almost no effort to live in the real world. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_e24d2d5c | type |
Reptiles Are Abhorrent | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_e24d2d5c | comment |
Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Howard describes to Price gigantic rattlers imagined by him. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_e35b1a96 | type |
Everything Is Big in Texas | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_e35b1a96 | comment |
Everything is Big in Texas: Howard's personality largely meets the stereotype. Interestingly, the same features - loudness, cheerfulness and boastfulness - were attributed to Conan in Howard's fiction, which was explained as the result of his commitment to the culture of Asgard as opposed to cheerless Cimmeria. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_e40f4e19 | type |
Sexy Mentor | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_e40f4e19 | comment |
Sexy Mentor: Howard, in Price's eyes. | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_e63270bc | type |
Mr. Imagination | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_e63270bc | comment |
Mr. Imagination: Howard, best exemplified when he first describes Conan to Novalyne, and almost seems to become possessed by the character. He later talks to Novalyne about ancestral memory, implying it's where he believes his Conan yarns come from (something Howard himself claimed, perhaps seriously, perhaps not). | |
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| The Whole Wide World / int_fccd06b6 | type |
Beware the Nice Ones | |
| The Whole Wide World / int_fccd06b6 | comment |
Beware the Nice Ones: Novalyne at first seems timid compared to the bombastic Howard, but he soon learns that she's a spitfire to match him. | |
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The Whole Wide World |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
| The Whole Wide World | hasFeature |
Films of 1995–1999 / int_b153bf1f | |
| The Whole Wide World | hasFeature |
Sidelong Glance Biopic / int_b153bf1f |
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