For those who believe that god created the world, the respect for the Land by Tompkins and Western Movies in general is prevalent. Tompkins explains this notion by stating, "God creates the heaven and earth and then the light, the constituent elements of the Western landscape. In the Western as in Genesis, the physical world comes first. The only difference is that instead of being created by God, it is God." (Tompkins, 70) This is exposed when western films show the ominous and omnipresent landscape in which these movies are produced. Vast deserts and towering rocky cliffs provide and unchanging landscape which govern the west. The Searchers is a perfect example of this land being a God because the landscape makes the powerful alpha male Ethan look so small. It has an underlying theme that no man is bigger or more powerful the land, and the people that survive it are those who learn how to live with the land and not against it.
Ethan is fascinated by the land and does not seem to ever want to leave it. He is constantly wandering this difficult landscape looking for his neice, but deep down looking for himself, and it seems like he is able to do that when in the land. The town is a place that he goes, but that is not where he feels human. The land calls to him and he follows that is why the movie is called The Searchers.
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