DG "The Searchers"

One relationship between the two is that although the men in the movie rule over social aspects in their surrounding, they are always still under nature’s command. Ethan and Martin, the two protagonists in The Searchers, must quit their search for Ethan’s niece when the Western winter comes and the heavy snows fall. They had to wait several months until they continue to look for her. Also, in the beginning of the movie, Ethan stops and gives food and rest for his horse before he races back over to his brother’s house to stop the Indians. If he didn’t, his horse would have ended up dead like Martin’s, who had to wait for Ethan to return to pick him up. This is supported in Tompkins’ book when she writes, “They [men] may break horses and drive cattle, kill game and kick dogs and beat one another into a pulp, but they never lord over nature” (page 72). Although men in Westerns abused and ruled over other people and things, they always respected the land. Ethan and Martin were above the human laws of the world, but not above the laws of nature. Another point that is depicted in the film is that the men of Westerns always know how to navigate the land. She writes, “When a man walks or rides into a forest, he is lost among the trees […] But when a lone horseman appears on the desert plain, he dominates it instantly, his view extends as far as the eye can see” (74). Thompson expresses this by comparing the landscape of a desert with that of a forest. It is extremely difficult for a man to trek through the woods safely and without getting lost while the desert is very open and someone is able to know where they are going and steer his way to his destination. In The Searchers, Ethan and Martin never lose their way and are always on the right track and are in great position to arrive at their destination. It is not only Ethan’s knowledge of the land, but also the easiness of the landscape for this purpose.

There is one point that Tompkins makes in her book about the landscape that the land is always a symbolism for despair. In the chapter, she remarks that, “the desert is the landscape of death.” This is clearly not the case in The Searchers, where all the ranches are their almost their independent communities in which the owners are making quality of living high enough for them to be happy. They obviously chose to live there and do not believe the desert is a land of death. Granted this is only one of the hundreds of Western movies that are produced, but the assertion that the landscape for all of these films and novels represents death to all its inhabitants is too broad to be made.