Ox Bow Incident: Virtue Vs Power

Virtue vs. power is a theme in which a character has the power to do something right and does it, as opposed to when a character has the power to do something right but abuses that power. The book The Ox-Bow Incident portrays many examples of this theme.

Major Tetley is an excellent exemplar of how virtue vs. power is expressed in the book. Upon the formation of the posse, Major Tetley took charge of everything. He motives for taking charge of the situation were wholly personal. He wanted to see his son become a “man”, not see justice carried out or the law upheld. Power, in Major Tetley’s eyes, was the only thing that existed. Virtue was of no concern here. He could have done as the prisoners had asked him: listened to their side of the story, waited for real physical evidence, and not gotten carried away by his own personal aims. But power was too prominent a thing to ignore, and Tetley seized the opportunity granted him to make his son a “man” by making him pull the rope around the prisoner’s neck. Major Tetley’s power-hungry motives only got three innocent men murdered, his son killed, and his own life ended. Another example of virtue vs. power depicted in the book is Davies’s usage of appeals to reach out to the peoples about the posse.