Why is the girl hanging/fainted on the horse in this picture?
The artist, Charles Deas, has taken the typical 19th century novel narrative of the "damsel-in-distress" and brought it to the American frontier. The man on horseback is rescuing the woman from the fire that is sweeping across the prairie. She may have fainted from the smoke, or perhaps just from the shock of the situation! It's a very dramatic scene. Eastern urban audiences were interested in the dangerous aspects of Western life in the 1800s, and artists like Deas gave them the vicarious thrills they were seeking.