To belong is to feel deeply rooted in civilization, cultural ideology, familial identity, and social norms. There are usually two types of Westerners: one who is able to return from his own quest and still be able to reunite and reintegrate into a civilization that he has left and the other is the drifting Westerner who is still unable to find placement and stability. But John Ford’s The Searchers, unlike most traditional Westerns, punctuates the latter through his most memorable character, Ethan Edwards, as the conflicted Westerner. Ethan fails to reconcile with the reality of his conflicted existence in an unsettled world still recovering from political, cultural, and economical residuals that stem from multiple wars and unrest between the early white settlers and the most powerful Indian tribe, the Comanches. It is no wonder that the wandering Westerner such as Ethan is caught between two extremities: the freedom on the unpredictable and often times, perilous frontier and the constraints of white civilization influenced by principles that stem from Christian ideology. Ethan is well aware that the dichotomy can never cement his status in a civilized world. Consequently, he becomes his own antagonist when facing his existential instability while confronting the tumult of both worlds—the Comanches and the whites—who continue to fight for world dominance that goes beyond claiming territory but rather asserting a lasting identity that preserves their cultural and social mores and values. The backdrop of the land wars and culture wars exacerbate the lament of a wandering Westerner such as Ethan who struggles with his identity while he sets on a vengeful and racially charged expedition to retrieve his niece, Debbie Edwards, from captivity from a band of Comanches who have also raided his brother’s home and killed his remaining family. The search for his niece paves the way for his own existential search in which he finds troubling, leaving him astray amid his endeavors to find his place in the world. Therefore, Ford brings to light a Western civilization that have “won” but not quite won through Ethan’s questionable heroism as he grapples with his understanding of white identity and white civilization amid his reluctance to settle into a new West that encourages racial heterogeneity.
Ford presents a troubled and unsettled world with overlapping wars, the Civil War (1861-1865), the Texas-Indian Wars (1820-1875), and the Second Franco Mexican War (1861-1867), all of which have left a lasting impression on Ethan’s existential flux. The Searchers is set three years after the Civil War, emphasizing a period fraught with warring political ideologies between the North and the South. It is also a period plagued with the pursuit for Texas dominance, particularly between the Texans and the Comanches (in this case, the whites against the reds). The wars extend beyond the usurping of land but also racial prominence and authority. A country that is constantly ravaged by wars makes any type of self-preservation or survival almost impossible since death and tragedy are inevitable. For instance, the death of Brad Jorgensen, the fiancé of Ethan’s eldest niece, Lucy, is the first casualty during their early search for Debbie and Lucy. Once Brad finds out that Lucy was raped and later killed by the Comanches, he ambushes the Comanches’ encampment in a blind fury and is killed instantly. When Ethan mentions to Mr. Jorgensen about his son’s death and tries to accept responsibility for the tragedy, Mr. Jorgensen decries the reality of a troubled and perilous country: “It’s this country killed my boy!” He is fully aware that tragedy is inevitable in the current milieu. Mrs. Jorgensen also laments about a doomed civilization marred by wars with little hope for survival—at least for her and her husband’s generation. She tells her husband and Ethan that “someday this country will be a fine good place to be . . . Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come …” The promise of peace and stability must result in the sacrifice and turmoil of a generation. But Ethan holds onto a generation that is still governed by vengeance, often consisting of lawlessness and obsessive hate. Because of this, he does not tread the waters carefully when executing revenge. Even at the start of the quest, Mrs. Jorgenson tries to warn Ethan the futility of vengeance. She tells him not to “let the boys (Brad and Martin) waste their lives on vengeance.” She is aware that “the boys” have also placed themselves in Ethan’s precarious world, which has eventually culminated into her son’s death.
Because Ethan is a by-product of multiple wars and an active fighter of the ongoing Texas-Indian Wars, his morality remains dubious, causing him to oscillate between the structured civil world and the wandering and reckless outlaw. Three years after the Civil War, he arrives suddenly at his brother’s homestead draped in a faded Confederate coat. He did not immediately return to his family after the war, and his mysterious absence raises eyebrows. No one knew Ethan’s whereabouts. Being lost both on a figurative and literal level has created an existential conflict. Ethan keeps his cards close in discussing his past, which is an indication that he has been genuinely lost when it comes to his identity and whereabouts, especially as a man who has been just about everywhere on the unpredictable Western plains. His self-appointed exemption from white civilization allows him to go rogue. Thus, bloodlust is something Ethan is used to. When his nephew asks Ethan whether he used to kill a lot of Yankees, Ethan matter-of-factly tells him that he has killed some—without any expression of regret or remorse. The life he has lived within those three years makes him suspect, as he bears gifts of newly minted gold that could possibly mean they were stolen. When his brother asks him about California, he responds: “How should I know?” adding more mystery and suspicion behind his nomadic escapades. Being a former soldier without any residual feelings behind the tragedy of war, including its brutality and horrors in taking another person’s life, he becomes somewhat removed from any lawful and decent human sensibilities. He remains, in a sense, marginal, to societal norms. Thus, Ethan’s character is the antithesis of the good-natured Western hero. He is assertive and aggressive in his own corrupt moral convictions. He “shoots people in the back (and robs them), disrupts funerals (and weddings), views all religion with open cynicism and sarcasm, and continually desecrates the bodies of the dead (gleefully shooting out the eyes of dead Comanches, or scalping them)” (Eckstein 4). Untamed in white civility that stem from Christian-European values and virtues, he relishes in not having to be beholden to anyone or anything—and that includes social white principles and Christian mores. His aversion to the common world of civil domesticity and lawfulness “shows us that Ethan rejects society because it would corrupt and distort his freedom” (Church 48). This freedom can also be referred to the lawlessness and barbarism that he relishes in gratuitously, putting his moral sensibilities and humanity on shaky grounds. Thus, “Ethan’s only law is his own, fashioned from his long-standing rapport with the wilderness. His character is shown throughout as being ignorant and unsympathetic to civilization and its ways;” and consequently, “he is in touch with his surroundings but out of touch with his people and he clearly likes it that way” (Schatz 73). His unorthodox life is without any structure and genuine human connection.
However, relishing in the vast frontier without any societal constraints can only go so far. In fact, it becomes the main drive behind Ethan’s contradiction, particularly as he struggles to assert a more stable identity as a roaming frontiersman. Ethan engages in multiple identities that stem from his ventures. He can speak Comanche. He can speak Spanish. His actions are criminal and barbaric—and are far removed from the peaceful, civilized, and orderly domestic world of his brother’s. This is clearly illustrated in his final reaction to Scar’s death by scalping him, which makes him synonymous with his Comanche enemies. From his travels around the frontier experiencing conflicts and wars, he is very much aware it is not truly a white man’s world but wishes it were so.
As liberating as it is for Ethan to remain free, there are sacrifices that comes with such a freedom. Ethan’s inability to settle in a more structured world such as the civil and domestic worlds has cost him the woman he loves, Martha, whom his brother, Aaron, takes for his wife. Therefore, Ethan’s rejection of society is also met with ambivalence, prompting him to be caught between the two worlds. Literally, he travels back and forth between the territory and his brother’s home—uncertain of what place suits him best—since the territory can also be a place that tires him, making him restless and weary, hence his sudden return to his family’s homestead. Ironically, Ethan’s longing return to Martha as opposed to his blood kin, Aaron, is what prompts him to rekindle his brotherly role and civilian life—but only for a short while. Martha who first greets Ethan by the threshold becomes a reminder of a painful regret of what could have been. They both share a lingering stare of tenderness when they first see each other after arriving suddenly at his brother’s homestead. Martha represents order and white civility—a world Ethan is so far removed. “Inside the home, Martha gently oversees a scene of contented domesticity. The home is clean and orderly; the children are well mannered and happy” (Studlar 181). Ethan’s family are the quintessential Western pioneers, representing the American dream of settlement until tragedy strikes.
Ethan’s mere presence on the homestead disrupts the domestic order—as it serves as a distraction. “Ethan is related by blood to Aaron, but his sexual attraction to Martha, and hers to him, threatens the family” (Studlar 183). She is seen in the background caressing Ethan’s Confederate coat and consequently, pulling her away from her wifely duties. His sudden presence adds tension between the brothers such as Aaron’s insecurity towards Ethan’s more dominant presence in having another male in the household and Martha’s affection for another man. Knowing that his presence can be both threatening and burdensome (hence, an indication of his displacement), Ethan is adamant about paying for his stay at his brother’s home after his brother expresses apprehension. Thus, Ethan’s “transgressive desire for his brother’s wife means there is no place in the home, no family he can be integrated into” (Buscombe 21). This becomes the core of his displacement. Ethan undergoes two conflicting roles: the returning kin and the longing brother-in-law with a restrained love for his sister-in-law, Martha.
However, Ethan’s intrusion in his brother’s marriage remains tethered to his own principles even though he is well aware that the lackluster Aaron is no match for Ethan—even if the situation warrants a fight for Martha. Ethan’s checkered and mysterious past has granted him a tough, survivor’s instinct and a macho prowess that stems from his unstructured life as a nomad in which the domestic Aaron lacks. When the Comanche is about to raid the Edwards’ homestead, Aaron’s son tells his father “I just wished Uncle Ethan was here” to help protect the family. Aaron—powerless, uninteresting, and devoid of any adventurous qualities—is a foil to his brother’s brave bravado since Aaron is a man limited to domestic sensibilities. Because of this, he cannot fully uphold the family’s safety, especially when it comes to the Comanches. Ethan is well aware of his macho dominance but refuses to relish in it out of respect for Martha. She is, in essence, the embodiment of pure domestic Christianity that typifies the ideal white female Westerner. Therefore, Ethan and Martha are “representatives of two very different moral orders, one associated with domesticity and love, the other with wandering and vengeance” (Studlar181). She is dutiful to her matriarchal duties, such as staying loyal to her husband, raising her children, and tending to her husband’s needs as his wife. Along with these admirable traits, she upholds Christian morals—quick to correct and castigate her children for any disrespectful actions no matter how minute. Ethan refuses to cause harm (at least in terms of acting on his desire for his sister-in-law). Ethan knows that he cannot integrate in a domestic world because he is incapable of being a settled man. This leads to his oscillation between the two worlds he cannot fully commit:
The film shows us the realization of Ethan’s contradictory presence through the destruction of the Edwards households. Ethan breaks down the opposition between freedom and family he initially establishes by crossing the threshold of the household in the film’s opening moments. Yet he brutally reestablishes this opposition by upsetting family harmony and remind us that the marriage oath is both necessary to family stability and breakable by an outsider. (Church 50)
The breakability can only go so far, however. Ethan knows Martha is unable to make him a settled man. Therefore, Ethan, from afar, admires the calm life of domesticity—and he is acutely aware he does not qualify as a husband. Part of Ethan finds the domestic world, especially marriage, sacred and necessary and, therefore, he is unwilling to cross the line fully. Thus, Ethan’s refrain from acting out his love for Martha can be considered a “noble” sacrifice in order to preserve and perpetuate white purity, especially when it comes to the necessity of women in continuing Christian white civilization. A man of horrendous sins such as Ethan is underserving of such a woman as Martha. He is well aware his savage tendencies have influenced his domestic and civil incompatibility.
But when Martha is raped by Scar, a man who also arrives at the home suddenly and without formal invitation, he has left a lasting trail of destruction that has been carried out by sexual violence as opposed to sexual infidelity. A full disruption of the household through sexual assault becomes the ultimate disorder. Knowing what has happened in the household is a vicious act, Ethan unearths the same inhumanity he knows he is capable of, especially when he scalps the already deceased Scar with vengeful fury. “Ethan’s act of scalping Scar is only the final confirmation that he has much of the Indian in him” (Buscombe 22). This places Ethan along the same level as his barbaric counterparts whom he loathes, the Comanches. Such abominable action blurs the evil lines between the reds and the whites. More significantly, it debunks the myth that the latter is presumably the more civilized, humanely motivated by Christian values, and racially superior. This existential threat to white preeminence remains unsettling for Ethan. Ethan harbors the utmost hate and anger for an Indian to rape a white woman—and not just any white woman but a woman Ethan has longed for affectionately and has placed on a pedestal. Martha is known to be “the heart of the family, ‘the cherished home of the affections’ and the center of a normal, truly ‘civilized’ emotional life in Ford’s vision of the West” and most importantly, “the ideal pioneer woman” (Studlar 179-181). Her desecration on a sexual level has destroyed not only Martha but also the ideal white woman he is willing to return to from his years of drifting. According to Ethan, the protection and preservation of Martha’s role as the respectable wife and mother, one that has been cemented through the traditions of white domesticity (i.e., keeper of the home and hearth and pillar of mother and wife), has kept her whiteness sacred and untainted. She represents the pinnacle of the ordered Western civilization. However, “In raping Martha, Scar has acted out in brutal fashion the illicit sexual desire which Ethan harbored in his heart” (Buscombe 21). Furthermore, “Ethan Edwards’s attitudes toward female purity and miscegenation are associated with the projection of his desire for ideal white womanhood—Martha” (Studlar 188). The rape has contaminated her—and has poisoned Ethan’s perception of the perfect white woman of the frontier. When Ethan visits the ruins of the Edwards’s charred house after the raid, he sees the remains of the woman he loves violated in the most horrific way by the Comanches. Ethan leaves the scene of the crime with anguish—the mark of his burgeoning maniacal and obsessive vengeance. With this in mind, he anticipates the appalling fate of the remaining women in his family, Lucy and Debbie, setting him out on a five-year expedition to seek retribution and to return them to the whiteness he has valued even though has not wholeheartedly kept in practice.
More significantly, the rape is also a desecration of Ethan’s only moral fiber he has adamantly held onto, a moral salvation that remains indestructible until Martha’s rape. Consequently, the rape has robbed Ethan of the very little humanity left in him. The “noble sacrifice” is thus left to fester in vain. In essence, Scar has not only usurped Ethan’s deep desires but also his last ounce of tenderness in his soul in the cruelest imaginable way. This further removes him (literally and figuratively) from white civilization amid his search and wandering for his only surviving kin, making him blind with racist rage and dangerous vengeance. He is more of a psychotic outlaw rather than the model Christian whiteness out for justice. Instead, he becomes more like his enemy, Scar, who is also lured into the cycle of a tit-for-tat vengeance. When Scar’s sons are killed, he, in turn, kills the whites and takes away their white children and/or wives in order to bear more sons. Scar’s sons are also taken away by the brutality of the whites, and, thus, both are displaced from their families: Ethan “loses” his remaining white kin (Debbie) whose “whiteness” (both on racial and sexual level) has been defiled by the Comanches, whereas Scar has lost sons who will no longer carry out his lineage, legacy, and ultimately his civilization. Both men are more alike than different and they continue to wreak havoc on each other’s family and domestic domains.
The loss of his family from the Comanches’ bloodthirsty killing has exacerbated Ethan’s familial and civil disconnectedness. The undercurrent of Ethan’s need to preserve his family, that is, by finding Debbie, manifest in his own grappling with his identity insomuch that he is also trying to find his own clan, tribe, family. His search for Debbie is to assert his whiteness as an uncle to his white family, in turn solidifying the traditions of the white Western world. Ironically, revenge is Ethan’s way of reintegrating himself into the civil world in order to feel more akin to white civilization or rather his “tribe,” which can only be cemented by familial unity. Because revenge helps assuage any feelings of regret and existential uncertainty of where he truly belongs, he takes on this vengeful search for Scar who has raped, pillaged, and murdered his family. His vengeance is not only about justice, but it is also about a hopeful self-affirmation of his white origins—as uncle, brother, and even a protective lover of his idyllic woman (although the love was never consummated). Thus, “Ethan’s assumption of the role of justified avenger, wreaking upon Scar the punishment he deserves, allows him to assume the high moral ground,” especially as white preservationist, one that is personal and one that is generally existential on a warring frontier between the reds and whites (Buscombe 21). Ethan’s racism also lends itself to the possibility of seeking white dominance that coincides with the purity of the Western frontier in terms of what was historically known as Manifest Destiny. “Manifest Destiny, as a notion and as a blueprint for expanding empire, meant that the land, all of it, belonged to the white man” and that pioneers “pushed as far into Indian country as their courage, or Indian war parties, would let them” (Gwynne 163). Of course, the idea has led to the constant bloodshed—and a reassessment and reckoning when it comes to lawful civility amid the expansion westward. Furthermore, critics J. David Alvis and John E. Alvis reflect on the contradictions behind such hardships. They assert “Civilization in the Western … depends on two opposing sets of virtues: one required for a peaceful and commodious life under the administration of law, and another for overcoming external threats to peace and rule of law” (70). Ethan’s vengeance crusade (prompted by racism and retribution) also echoes Jorgenson’s “this country” lament about the difficulties on the frontier when it comes to claiming racial dominance, which also includes acts of lawlessness in which Ethan has no qualms committing.
Ethan’s violent and vehement reaction to Debbie as a Comanche captive dignifies his racist urges under the guise of white preservation. From this, there is also is a reckoning with his own white identity. When the Comanches have indoctrinated Debbie as their own, she becomes a marginal outsider much like Ethan—but the degradation of her marginalization is far more egregious when she calls the Comanche “my people.” In the true case of Cynthia Ann Parker, the historical individual that inspired Ford’s Debbie, Parker’s abduction was portrayed as a little “nine-year-old white girl from a devout Baptist family [who] had been transformed into a pagan slave” and “had mated with a redskin and borne his children and forgotten her mother tongues” (Gwynne 183). Because of this, “according to the morals of the day, [she was] grotesquely compromised” and “had forsaken the virtues of Christianity for the wanton immorality of the Indian” (Gwynne 183). Similarly, Debbie being “grotesquely compromise” has prompted Ethan to reject her as his own blood relative. He frets about the stain on her whiteness—and perhaps even his own—due to his continued nomadic and uncommitted ways to white civilization, which have cultivated his disdain for white traditions and social mores. In turn, they have prevented him from familial, domestic indoctrination—and brought him closer to barbaric and rogue behaviors that align him closely with his red enemies. “In spirit he inclines to a deracinated existence as extreme as the nomadic ways of the Comanche” (J. David Alvis and John E. Alvis 72). Through this, he becomes further away from being the white uncle, since his own reach for white civility—in which he craves for and is repelled by simultaneously—is threatened and curtailed. With his only remaining white kin (who also shares the white disconnect as her indoctrination into white “ways” is considered a distant memory) Ethan considers her whiteness long gone and is compelled to punish her for it as opposed to holding a mirror to his own transgressions. Thus, getting rid of Debbie is a deflection of his own moral crimes and crisis in identity.
In Ethan’s eyes, Debbie has been “contaminated” by her Comanche assimilation. She has the marks of a fallen woman. Five years have passed since her abduction. She is no longer the eight-year-old young child at the time of the raid, but rather an adolescent when Ethan sees her again as one of Scar’s wives. Ethan would rather see her dead because there is no hope to purify her—especially now that she has willingly molded into a Comanche woman, especially as one of Scar’s wives, a deliberate obligation. Because of this, he cannot consider her as his own kin, making him more distant than ever from his family. To make matters worse for Ethan, Debbie has become sexually accommodating to the Comanches, especially when she tells Ethan and Martin “they are my people now” and willing to remain as Scar’s wife. Ethan and Martin’s attempt to return her back to her white family is rebuffed. Because of this, she is no longer the Comanches’ captive, but rather one of them.
The narcissism of Scar’s sexual undertaking of Debbie drives Ethan’s rejection and contempt towards Debbie—who was once perceived as the revered offspring from a woman he has placed on the pedestal. For Ethan, he sees it as the contamination of white feminine wholesomeness. Thus, “[Debbie’s captivity] becomes a war trophy Scar uses to taunt Ethan” and more disturbingly for Ethan, “Debbie is displayed as a sexual war trophy when Scar selects her, of all his wives, to bring the scalp pole to show Martin and Ethan” (Stadlar 182). Furthermore, Debbie contrasts greatly with the former female captives who were raped. Traumatized by the horrors that were done to them, they have mentally perished. In both horror and disgust, Ethan declares: “They ain’t white anymore” after witnessing their mental deterioration and wholesome degradation. It is not only the female captives’ insanity that erase their whiteness but it is also the “poisoning” of their white purity on a sexual level. Ethan’s declaration “tells us that these women are beyond Ethan’s understanding. He can only label them as white or as Comanche, pure or impure, according to how their sexuality has been exchanged (among white men or among red)” (Studlar 189). He places women between two extremities. The “anxiety about the spiritual and physical pollution of sex with Indians remained a constant, if unspoken, theme in the conquest of the West” (Frankel 35). It questions the true value of womanhood when it comes to sexual contamination. But Ford has a tendency to subvert the one-dimensional portrayal of the pioneer woman that is simply reduced to the virginal and matriarchal prototypes. More importantly, Ford’s most iconic “Westerns also challenge the expectation that only the sexually ‘pure’ woman, whether virginal ingénue [i.e., Debbie] or devoted mother [i.e, Martha] can properly represent civilization” (Studlar 176). Ethan must face another reality that Ford presents unconventionally in his Western narrative in that “he would allow such a female character to defy convention by living with her sins rather than dying for them” (Studlar 176). But Ethan’s affliction over Debbie’s sins prompts him to make that decision for Debbie as he grapples with own transgressions. There is no purging of his own sins but rather a mere acknowledgement of them, which only leads to more violence and hence more sins.
Again, it is mainly Debbie’s sexual impurity that bothers Ethan, which exacerbates his contradictions when it comes to issues of racism. He tells Martin “She’s been with the bucks!” and laments “she’s nothin’.” In historical narratives of white female captivity, “there was an undercurrent of anxiety and ambiguity in the captivity narratives that was all about sex. Indian men were portrayed as the most hideous of creatures—dark, unclean, untamed, and rapacious—and to be raped by an Indian was a fate worse than Death” (Frankel 35). In addition, Debbie’s miscegenation “erases” Ethan’s family roots that has helped legitimized his whiteness in the past and has deepened his own sense of loss as an uncle. Not returning to familial roots (especially to Debbie) has displaced him even more so. His remaining kin is “gone”—and he resents her for this because she will no longer serve as a token for him in which he can return to his “white ways” or white roots he so adamantly hopes to achieve. He projects his feelings of displacement onto Debbie’s captivity and subsequent Indian acculturation. When it comes to placing himself in the existential hierarchy of the West, he still desires to reap in the benefits of the uncivilized and depraved life by living in the territory while harboring a disdain for orderly white traditions and civility—including Christian values. Paradoxically, to be free is to “operate” also in the manner of the Comanche (as the wandering rogue privy to thievery and violent bloodlust). But Ethan refuses to embrace openly and honestly their lifestyle and culture—an action that Debbie (although not shown to be violent) is willing to partake in and feel more akin to, spiritually and existentially, as a Comanche acculturate. This is clearly illustrated in Debbie’s Indian attire, her ability to speak Comanche, and her reluctance to speak her forgotten language, English, especially when she requests for Martin to leave her to her Comanche family. By contrast, Ethan relishes in the “red-like ways” for convenience. For Debbie, an orphan under tragic circumstances, her “red-like ways” is a matter of resigning or perhaps adapting comfortably into to a race that has molded her newfound identity over the years—especially, as a Comanche wife. Such actions were not instigated through rape—but rather from her actual volition to adapt to a new culture and ethnicity. Her situation separates her other female captives that spared her from succumbing to insanity.
The double standard when it comes to miscegenation is also explored when Ethan takes it lightly when Martin inadvertently takes on a Comanche for a wife while trading goods with the Indians. Historically, “…sex between a white man and a Native American woman is unthreatening, and so capable of treatment as comedy [as in the “marriage” between Look and Martin Pawley], while sexual contact between a white woman and a nonwhite man is entirely different matter—tragic, and demanding of vengeance” (Pye 227). In Debbie’s case, the issue of rape remains dubious—causing Ethan to seethe over the reality of Debbie’s willingness to be sexually obliged to an Indian. There is an implied willing disposition to belong to a whole new different culture and ethnicity, one that is perceived to be the ultimate enemy of white civilization and a contrast to Anglo-European civility. Cynthia Parker, who was historically known as the real white squaw and who was returned to her white family, was perceived as a figure of tragedy and a disconcerting affront to white superiority. A white woman should be beholden to a white man only. But Cynthia Parker “has refused on repeated occasions to return to her people, thus challenging one of the most fundamental of the Eurocentric assumptions about Indian ways that given the choice between the sophisticated, industrialized, Christian culture of Europe and the savage, bloody, and morally backward ways of the Indians, no person would ever choose the latter” (Gwynne 8). Ford surfaces a provocative look on the dismantling and debunking of white superiority through Debbie’s rejection of whiteness. Debbie, being a direct descendent of the model, white pioneer, Martha, has ultimately transgressed in her refusal to identify as white—and thus, perceived as the doubling of existential ruin. A white woman’s willingness to stay with the Comanche, particularly someone like Debbie, is equivalent to destroying the much-coveted hierarchy that has placed whiteness and/or European ancestry at the apex—particularly from a Western civilization lens. As a result, Ethan can longer consider Debbie his niece anymore as he has always been consumed with racist hatred towards the Indians, thereby, making him more detached from his last remaining blood kin. Ethan is left to ponder what is left of the white man’s civility and what is left of the white woman’s wholesome virtue when they are willing to be with their Indian counterparts.
Ethan considers miscegenation a harbinger to the destruction of Western civilization, particularly when it comes to racial cleanliness along with the perpetuation of Christian, Eurocentric ideals. Such notion begs the question: could the resounding lament of Mr. Jorgenson’s understanding of the country also be directed to the frontier as a wasteland, saturated with viciousness propelled by racism and the toppling of white dominance? The tit-for-tat raids that have consumed Texas for years have disgraced the idyllic whiteness as the brutality and thievery bled into both whites and reds. In 1860, the retrieval or some may say “rescue” of the real Debbie, Cynthia Ann Parker, from the Texas Rangers is a prime example of this reality. The Comanche encampment raid in Mule Creek, Texas, which was led by Texas Ranger commander Lawrence S. Ross, resulted in the shocking discovery of Cynthia Ann Parker: “Not quite believing what they [the Texas Rangers] had found, they took her back to what was left of her village, which the soldiers were busily looting. They were also scalping the dead Indians, men and women alike. By now scalping was the common practice on both sides” (Gwynne 177). Also, the surprising transformation of Cynthia Ann Parker whose blue eyes were the only feature that help identify her white ancestry became what was known demeaningly as the white squaw—and associated as a freak of nature. Similarly, in The Searchers, Laurie, Martin’s love interest and Jorgensons’ daughter, share this same repulsion when it comes to Debbie whose years of captivity have transformed her to a point of disgrace. Her zeal for husbandry is more important to her than the life of another individual after assuming that Debbie is now considered a hopeless cause. Laurie sees Debbie being tossed back and forth amongst Comanche perhaps for the purpose of sexual slavery. She is vehement towards Martin’s benevolent dedication to find Debbie before Ethan finds her to kill her. For instance, Laurie “describes Debbie as ‘the leavings of a Comanche buck, sold time and again to the highest bidder,’ and declares that Martha . . . would want Ethan to put a bullet in her brain” (Pye 224). Laurie is also an aspiring Martha. On the surface, she appears to have the same upstanding pioneer whiteness that Debbie and Martha have once exhibited—domesticated, wholesome, and even literate. She is also willing to accept Martin’s mix ancestry in spite of her racism towards Debbie. Frustrated by her inability to tie Martin down to the homestead before she becomes a spinster, she brazenly reveals the same racist sentiment as Ethan when trying to convince Martin to give up on saving Debbie. In addition, “her hideous outbursts locate the disgust and loathing of miscegenation not simply in Ethan but at the heart of the white community” (Pye 224). She, too, represents the resistance to a new, racially harmonious West.
Thus, Ford does not equivocate in the faulty sentiments behind Manifest Destiny along with the notion of white superiority and miscegenation. Mrs. Jorgenson is well aware that it will take a long time for whites to come into terms with coexisting with Indians and accepting a more racially heterogeneous West. She is well aware of the imminent risks in seeking the American dream through westward settlements. She declares: “Texicans took a reachin’ hold, way far out, past where any man has right or reason to hold on.” She astutely points out that land wars will continue to breed racial unrest and vice versa. Both Debbie and Martin personify the sentiments of a new West where the mixing of ancestral roots and miscegenation are the integral part of a more diverse and even unified civilization. Unlike their “pure” white counterparts such as Ethan and Laurie, both Martin and Debbie have held on to their sense of humanity. Martin “embodies the possibility of integration of harmonious mixing of races” as he shows compassion for Look’s death from the hands of the Confederates and Natalie’s [Debbie’s] impending death from her racist uncle (Pye 225). Moreover, “Natalie Wood’s early appearances as the grown-up Debbie … [brings light to] cross-cultural assimilation, living contentedly with another races, is raised as real possibility” (Pye 225). By her calling the Comanches “her people” it is an indication that she was, indeed, nurtured by them much like her white family and has fully integrated into their lives. But Ethan is not ready for the new West. Ethan’s desire for Debbie’s death will help put him out of his misery knowing that his only kin has been defiled and stained with irrevocable “uncleanliness.”
The irony behind Ethan’s racist contempt for Martin is more nuanced and incongruous in comparison to his feelings towards Debbie. Much like Laurie, ancestral mixing does not bother Ethan as much as the sexual intermingling between a white woman and an Indian, which warrants both death and condemnation. Ironically, this compels him to see Martin as his nearest kin by bequeathing his belongings to him when Ethan is wounded. According to Ethan, Martin is worthy of life more so than Debbie. But earlier in the narrative, Ethan’s blatant racism is a reflection of his own insecurities of not belonging and not feeling settled. Because of this, he is restless, curt, and cruel. His actions are also inconsistent and ironic. Ethan projects his insecurities onto Martin who has Cherokee blood in his ancestry. Ethan is no moral purist at heart—and very much aware of it. He capitalizes on untainted blood by being forthright and relishing in his racist disdain towards Martin in order to make him feel less insecure about his savage ways. His racist contempt for Martin’s Indian and white ancestry, which, in actually, is also a projection of Ethan’s own insecurities of not measuring up to white standards. Ethan refuses to acknowledge that Martin’s mixed ancestry is not by choice—but he continues to punish him for it by making him feel less than human. As Martin is the adopted son of his brother, Aaron, whom he accepts into his family regardless of his Indian ancestry, Ethan is vehement in alienating him from his pure white family. For instance, Ethan, shoots Martin Pawley a death stare as he approaches the dinner table at his brother’s homestead. He needles him by exaggerating Martin’s ancestry by referring to him as a half-breed. Martin corrects him by telling him he is one-eighth Indian and was told that his remaining heritage is English and Welsh. Although Martin is uncertain of his heritage, his Indian blood does not make him savage, cruel, or violent. In fact, Martin is far more heroic in character in comparison to his entirely white counterpart:
Martin’s romantic, naturally benevolent character can only truly realize his nature in three steps: by coming to understand the violent and devastating tendencies on the frontier; conquering its savagery with his benevolence; and justifying family life not on the principle of blood, but on the common principle of humanity, which ends the cycle of violence. In so doing, he can return to the natural rustic life of the family assured that he is prepared to fight back if trouble once again rises. (Church 55)
Most importantly, Martin has stayed true to his humanity during his quest to find Debbie by protecting her from Ethan’s desire to commit violence. Martin refuses to kill her in spite of her Comanche assimilation. He dismisses the notion of white superiority in order to see the integrity of humanity as opposed to the integrity (or rather purity) of race. Ethan knows that Martin is a man with greater humanity, deepening his own insecurities. He comes to realize blood does not have to be tainted in order to carry on white ideals or better yet, humanistic ideal, that both blood thirsty and warring Comanches and whites have refused to acknowledge and aspire to. Thus, “Marty may be gauche, ill-educated, little versed in affairs of the heart; but he is still the moral center of the film, the one who, while all around him are driven by their prejudices, sees clearly that Debbie can and must be save” (Buscombe 47). Martin’s duality, the combination of both white and red, embodies the purity of the human heart—as do Debbie in her acceptance of the Comanches as her people. Both dismisses and rebuffs the notion of white superiority—embracing only the spirit of humanity and placing it at the apex of existence.
Thus, adaptability is necessary in order to feel a sense of belonging and placement, which is clearly seen in both Martin and Debbie’s character—as opposed to the wandering Westerner such as Ethan. Martin knows where he belongs after Debbie’s return to the Jorgensons and is able to return to his prospective white wife, whereas Ethan succumbs to an environment of instability in spite of his change of heart when it comes killing Debbie. In sum, “It is Martin who in the end kills Scar and rescues Debbie, and Martin who gets to return home, rebuild the remains of his shattered family, and resume a normal life with the woman he loves, while Ethan is banished to the desert itself, condemned to wander forever between the winds—the same fate as the Comanches he has dispatched to eternity” (Frankel 308). Towards the end of the quest to retrieve Debbie, there is still no explicit redemption for the rootless Westerner such as Ethan, especially since his charitable action to spare Debbie is due to the urging of Martin’s moral guidance. Ethan does not fully undergo an all-embracing and all-endearing reconciliation with racism but rather a resignation that the new West will continue to leave him astray. Critic Roger Ebert, astutely points out the dubiousness behind Ethan’s heroism:
I think it took a certain amount of courage to cast Wayne as a character whose heroism was tainted. Ethan’s redemption is intended to be shown in that dramatic shot of reunion with Debbie, where he takes her in his broad hands, lifts her up to the sky, drops her down into his arms, and says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.” The shot is famous and beloved, but small counterbalance to his views throughout the film–and indeed, there is no indication he thinks any differently about Indians.
In reality, Ethan has no stable place to go—not his brother’s home nor the Jorgensen’s. Ford has the foresight to see a Westerner who will remain lost in an ever-changing world or a world needing to shift to a different cross-assimilation model that is more diverse in order to survive. Through this, he punctuates this tragedy eloquently towards the end of the film where the Jorgensen’s home closes in front of him: “The final shot of Ethan walking away, filmed from inside the doorway of the Jorgensen ranch, is one of American cinema’s most eloquent. The mission is accomplished, but there is no place for the avenger in the new civilization he has helped forge. Ford cannot kill Ethan—John Wayne is simply too strong to die—but he can exclude him” (Frankel 309). Thus, Ethan must return to the territory where a changing civilization awaits. He is well aware that he must resign and/or fully adapt to the changes of the white “ways” while revising his own sense of self—especially on a moral level. Ethan is the embodiment of displacement in a burgeoning new West amid his reluctance to change. He will continue to live the life of a wanderer, anticipating the perpetuation of a troubled and threatened stability as he contends with a future that he is uncertain about fully integrating—and one that will continue to pervade in “this country.”
Dedicated to the Study of Film Class of 2021.
October 6, 2023
Works Cited
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Buscombe, Edward. The Searchers. British Film Institute. BFI Publishing, 2003.
Church, Jeffrey. “Recognition and Restlessness in John Ford’s The Searchers.” Perspectives on Political Science, vol. 38, no.1 Winter 2009, pp. 47-57. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.3200/PPSC.38.1.47-57.
Ebert, Roger. Review of The Searchers, directed by John Ford. Rogerebert.com, 25 November 2001, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-searchers-1956. Accessed 16 July 2023.
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Frankel, Glenn. The Searchers. The Making of an American Legend. Bloomsbury, 2013.
Gwynne, S.C. Empire of the Summer Moon. Scribner, 2010
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Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. McGraw-Hill, 1981.
Studlar, Gaylyn. “What Would Martha Want.” The Searchers: Essays and Reflections on John Ford’s Classic Western. Eckstein, Arthur M. and Peter Lehman, editors. Wayne University Press, 2004.