The Searchers

In “The Searchers”, we are given a main character played by John Wayne that seems to embody the toughness and ruggedness of the mythical western alpha male. To describe him fully in words would be difficult, but to describe him with a visual, you need only to look at the closing scene in “The Searchers”. When everyone is celebrating and entering the house, we are given a shot of the doorway looking outwards, and see Ethan standing, and then turning around and walking back into the harsh landscape. This shot brings to imagination Ethan disappearing into the wilderness, and becoming part of it. In “West of Everything”, Tompkins talks about how this is one of the ultimate goals of living in such a harsh environment. “Be brave, be strong enough to endure this, it says, and you will become like this – hard, austere, sublime. (71)” Ethan has done this, and has become an embodiment of the landscape that is loathed yet worshipped. It is completely true, like Tompkins says, that “Men imitate the land in Westerns (72)”. The trek through the west to find Debbie is long, hard, and unrelenting. In the same way, the searchers must become hard and relentless to match the intensity the wilderness puts upon them. To meet the goal of becoming just like the landscape, Ethan had to go up against nature, and not back down from it. This shows how the western hero “Both glorifies nature and suppresses it simultaneously (76)”.
“The Searchers” brings up the idea that the relationship between the cowboy and the landscape is a battle, but really a personal battle. For much of the film, the searchers were not fighting the Indians, but instead the landscape, trying to pick up a trail that might not be there, and trying to keep alive. When the cowboys outlasted nature, they really beat the weaknesses of men, and became more. They became an embodiment of the same environment that had caused them so much pain.