The violent element in the narrative structure of the basic Western—shoot-out, brawl, ambush, bank raid, fistfight, wounding, duel, or massacre—like any other semantic unit in a structured discourse cannot signify anything on its own. It can only signify in terms of the structured meanings of the message as a whole. Further, its signification depends on its relation—or the sum of the relations of similarity and difference—with other elements or units. Olivier Burgelin has long ago, and definitively, reminded us that the violent or wicked acts of a villain only mean something in relation to the presence/absence of good acts:

We clearly cannot draw any valid inferences from a simple enumeration of his vicious acts (it makes no difference whether there are ten or twenty of them) for the crux of the matter obviously is: what meaning is conferred on the vicious acts by the fact of their juxtaposition with the single good action? … One could say that the meaning of what is frequent is only revealed by opposition to what is rare.… The whole problem is therefore to identify this rare or missing item. Structural analysis provides a way of approaching this problem which traditional content analysis does not.

Indeed, so tightly constructed was the rule-governed moral economy of the simple-structure Western that one good act by a “villain” not only could, but apparently had to , lead to some modification or transformation of his end. Thus, the presence of numerous bad-violent acts (marked)/absence of any good-redeeming act (unmarked) = unrepentant villain; this in turns means that he can be shot down, without excuse, in the final episode and makes a brief and “bad” or undistinguished death, provided that the hero does not shoot the villain in the back, or unawares, and does not draw first. But , the presence of bad-violent acts (marked)/presence of single good-redeeming act (marked) also can = possible salvation or regeneration of the villain, deathbed reconciliation with hero or former cronies, restitution to wronged community, at the very least, lingering and “good” death. What, we may now ask, is the meaning of “violence” when it only appears and signifies anything within the tightly organized moral economy of the Western?