The lone gunslinger cowboy is one of the most iconic figures in American history – roguish and tough, with a pistol on his thigh and a checkered past, many Western films of the 50s and 60s feature such a character and their struggles with the chaotic and dangerous world of the Old West. In the case of the 1953 film Shane and the 1956 John Ford film The Searchers, their protagonists couldn’t be more alike while also taking somewhat different paths. Alan Ladd’s Shane and John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards are both mysterious figures who ride into the other character’s lives and change them irrecovably. They also leave just as suddenly and mysteriously as they arrived, having been changed or wounded by the adventure they just took.
The mysterious past of Shane and Ethan is a recurring theme in both works. In George Stevens’ film Shane, the titular character rides into town on a single horse, all bravado and swagger. Little to nothing is mentioned of his past, and no one knows him in this valley town – he is a stranger to everyone, and therefore can make a new life for himself. He is extremely skilled as a sharpshooter and gunslinger, implying a long history with violence and warfare, but the specifics are left to speculation. Ethan Edwards does the same in The Searchers, as his past is just as full of holes as Shane’s. Ethan is implied to have had quite a few adventures in his past, as the reverend mentions that Ethan “fits a lot of descriptions”. He returns to his home after three years of absence fighting in the Civil War, along with a huge sack of old coins. He refuses to pledge allegiance to the Texas Rangers, and gives a medal from the Mexican Revolutionary War to his niece (Lana Wood). Unlike Shane, he has a close connection to these people, as they are his family; even so, he is held apart from him due to his absence and his experiences (often having dinner apart from his family).
Both he and Shane are wild cards in tumultuous equations; they appear in their respective locations to provide a mysterious, antiheroic figure to shake up the balance that exists. Shane shows up in the midst of a fight between Starrett and Ryker in a land dispute; his arrival and intervention in the conflict is the overall significance of his presence in the town. With Ethan Edwards, a cattle robbery leads to the abduction of the Edwards family, leading him to lead a search for the Comanches who took them. Both of these men invest themselves in the conflicts that surround the movie’s setting, and often take a leadership role by necessity – they have the skills and aggression to get them done. While Shane is a more peaceful figure (viewing a gun as a tool instead of a weapon), Ethan is aggressive and vengeful. This may have something to do with the fact that Ethan’s targets stole his family, but nonetheless he mutilates and scalps Comanches he has killed (including Scar), and even attempts to kill Debbie when he finds out she has become a Comanche. Unlike Shane’s somewhat reluctant gunslinging (doing so out of necessity and honor), Ethan is a brute soldier and ruthless killer.
Both Ethan and Shane represent a particular kind of sexually repressed gunslinger, as well – while they have romantic interests, the film posits that they are incapable of having a traditional family, as was valued at the time. Shane is in love with Marian, but this goes unrequited, and flies in the face of her marriage to Joe; Ethan, meanwhile, has some understated feelings for his sister-in-law, which cannot be consummated. These figures lie outside the traditional family system, and even present a threat to it, which makes them seem all the more dangerous. At the end of the film, they both must ride off into the sunset, moving forward on their own, without the aid of a family or love, and are literally and figuratively wounded by this rejection by society.
In conclusion, Shane in Shane and Ethan in The Searchers are more alike than different; they both represent a particular kind of lone gunslinger who shakes up the status quo and brings justice to the victimized. The audience is shown little about these character’s pasts, but they are made clear through the skill and ruthlessness with which they solve problems through violence. However, this does not come without a cost, as they sacrifice their loves (and, it is implied by their injuries at the end of their respective films, their lives) for the sake of said justice. These figures speak to a particular breed of violence that was valued during the 1950s; audiences wanted to fetishize this kind of cowboy vigilantism, but recognized that it could not be part of normal society. This is symbolized in these characters always being fascinatingly on the fringe, always moving on and never letting us in.
Works Cited
Ford, John (dir.). The Searchers. Perf. John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter. Warner Bros., 1956.
Stevens, George (dir.). Shane. Perf. Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur. Paramount Pictures, 1953.
