The Heroines of "Unforgiven"

The movie Unforgiven is about seeking justice from those who hold special authority in the town of Big Whiskey. At the beginning of the movie, two cowboys are upstairs at a local saloon when one of them becomes enraged because Delilah, one of the prostitutes, naively giggles at the size of his male anatomy. Delilah unfortunately has to pay the price of insulting her customer by getting her face severely cut multiple times by a hunting knife. Her attacker and his accomplice are punished by being forced to give Skinny, the owner of the saloon, their horses. Strawberry Alice, the leader of the women, seeks fairness from Little Bill and combines the savings of the prostitutes to give as a $1,000 bounty to whoever kills the cowboys that assaulted Delilah. This reward entices William Munny, his partner Ned Logan, and the Schofield Kid to become assassins. Unforgiven explores themes of violence, death, and fighting inequality. The women in Big Whiskey are treated like property, where they are inanimate objects with no feelings, until they rise up against injustice and become heroic figures to the viewers because of their unwillingness to be treated like possessions.

In the film, the female characters are the ones who initiate much of the action after Little Bill and much of the male justice treat them like a commodity, which even to a prostitute is unacceptable. After Delilah is cut and the men of “justice” come, Skinny, the employer of the prostitutes, states that he has a contract with Delilah after bringing her to Big Whiskey and paying for all of her expenses. He said his contract represented an “investment of capital” and Little Bill simply calls it, “property”. Since Delilah is now “damaged property”, Skinny complains that nobody would want to do business with her, so Little Bill orders that the two attackers compensate Skinny by giving him their horses. Without any serious punishment to the cowboys, Little Bill allows them to use unnecessary violence in...