In Jane Tompkins’s West of Everything, Tompkins makes great points about the landscape of the Western. She states that “to be a man in a Western…means to be hard, to be tough, to be unforgiving.” (73) She goes on to later state that the landscape is the same as it has the same qualities as the hero does. She also claims that in a way, the land can take the place of love or companionship to the hero as “the land is everything to the hero…He courts it, struggles with it, defies it, conquers it, and lies down with it at night.” (81) Perhaps the theme that Tompkins writes about that applies most directly to The Searchers is that “town seduces.” (86)
However, in The Searchers it is not the hero played by John Wayne, Ethan Edwards, who is seduced by the town and the things within it. Ethan could probably care less about civilization considering the fact that the Civil War had been over for three years before he returned home at the beginning of the film. Instead, it is the hero of Cherokee descent played by Jeffrey Hunter, Martin Pawley, who finds reason to want and need to stay behind and allow Ethan to continue the search for his adoptive sister, Debbie, alone. When Ethan and Martin return home after losing Scar’s trail in the winter, Laurie Jorgenson is waiting for him and they immediately begin their relationship together. Not long after this, Laurie’s father, Lars, presents Ethan with a letter from a man who may have information on Debbie’s whereabouts. Here, Martin is faced with a tough choice. He must choose between staying with the girl of his dreams and starting a new family, or going back on the trail in order to help find what is left of his old family. He chooses to go back out with Ethan, risking his relationship with the woman he loves, as any Western hero would do given the situation.
This is not the only time he must make a difficult decision like this. After arriving back home just before Laurie is about to get married to another man, he must make a decision on whether to risk his life to take Debbie home by infiltrating the nearby Comanche camp where she is located. Of course, in the true fashion of a Western hero, he risks his life to save the damsel in distress. It is clear from the movie’s dialogue and the Hunter’s facial expressions that any of the times Martin is faced with a situation where he must make a decision, his decision to leave the town is never an easy one, but it just goes to show how seductive the town and the people and things within it can be.
In Jane Tompkins’s West of Everything, Tompkins makes great points about the landscape of the Western. She states that “to be a man in a Western…means to be hard, to be tough, to be unforgiving.” (73) She goes on to later state that the landscape is the same as it has the same qualities as the hero does. She also claims that in a way, the land can take the place of love or companionship to the hero as “the land is everything to the hero…He courts it, struggles with it, defies it, conquers it, and lies down with it at night.” (81) Perhaps the theme that Tompkins writes about that applies most directly to The Searchers is that “town seduces.” (86)
ReplyDeleteHowever, in The Searchers it is not the hero played by John Wayne, Ethan Edwards, who is seduced by the town and the things within it. Ethan could probably care less about civilization considering the fact that the Civil War had been over for three years before he returned home at the beginning of the film. Instead, it is the hero of Cherokee descent played by Jeffrey Hunter, Martin Pawley, who finds reason to want and need to stay behind and allow Ethan to continue the search for his adoptive sister, Debbie, alone. When Ethan and Martin return home after losing Scar’s trail in the winter, Laurie Jorgenson is waiting for him and they immediately begin their relationship together. Not long after this, Laurie’s father, Lars, presents Ethan with a letter from a man who may have information on Debbie’s whereabouts. Here, Martin is faced with a tough choice. He must choose between staying with the girl of his dreams and starting a new family, or going back on the trail in order to help find what is left of his old family. He chooses to go back out with Ethan, risking his relationship with the woman he loves, as any Western hero would do given the situation.
This is not the only time he must make a difficult decision like this. After arriving back home just before Laurie is about to get married to another man, he must make a decision on whether to risk his life to take Debbie home by infiltrating the nearby Comanche camp where she is located. Of course, in the true fashion of a Western hero, he risks his life to save the damsel in distress. It is clear from the movie’s dialogue and the Hunter’s facial expressions that any of the times Martin is faced with a situation where he must make a decision, his decision to leave the town is never an easy one, but it just goes to show what sacrifices need to be made in order to do what is right in times of hardship.
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