The Searchers Blog Post-BS

Tompkins states "If the opening shot recalls the earth at creation...it foreshadows the end of things as well. The desert is the landscape of death" (70). In the opening scene of The Searchers director John Ford films from inside the house of the main character Ethan Edwards brother and shows Ethan approaching the house on horseback from a distance and the grand emptiness of the landscape behind him. From this first scene the viewer realizes the importance of the landscape and gets a sense of a "space, pure and absolute" (70). However while being a space of solitude and spirituality, the desert also provides "no shelter, no water, no rest, no comfort" (71). Right away, the viewer can conclude that Ethan Edwards has an abundance of knowledge of the land and he respects the land as if it were his home. Throughout the movie, Ethan obeys the land and imitates it by trying to come off as tough and unforgiving. He tries to abandon his follower Martin and complete the task of finding his niece alone. For a cowboy, the land is his freedom and a pleasure-giver. A point Tompkins makes is the absence of fertility and greenery in a desert landscape, which symbolizes the lack of sex in a cowboy's life. Like the land Ethan, tries to portray an image of toughness throughout his isolated struggle to survive, only turning to the pleasure he receives from the land for comfort. "In the end, the land is everything to the hero; it is both the destination and the way" (81).