Conclusion

Abstract

First published in 1949 for an adult readership, adapted in 1953 into a film directed by George Stevens, and reprinted in 1954 as juvenile literature with all of the dirty words removed, Jack Schaefer’s Shane tells a familiar story.1 Similar to other postwar Westerns such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or High Noon, Shane dramatizes a central tenet of Cold War culture, that the selective use of force is needed to secure domestic stability. What makes Shane stand out among the many 1950s Westerns that register various components of Cold War America is its focus on both masculinity and the family. Accordingly, Shane seems remarkably clean as far as postwar Westerns go. It has a body count of only four and references none of the gritty realities of frontier life often ubiquitous to the Western: Indian massacre, prostitution, alcoholism, gambling. But, for a narrative almost obsessively antiseptic, where a major confrontation develops over Shane’s right to order a soda pop at the local saloon, Shane repeatedly and anxiously defines and redefines the threat of “dirty business.” Claiming that someone has or participates in “dirty business,” whether it is raising livestock or hiring gunfighters, is the ultimate insult in Shane and often leads to those most central of Western confrontations, the gunfight and the saloon brawl.KeywordsLate Nineteenth CenturyFilm VersionContainment CultureDomestic SpaceHigh NoonThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.