ABSTRACT
George Steven's film, Shane, is an instance of a traditional Hollywood Western plot: the conflict between cattlemen and homesteaders. Its hero, Alan Ladd finally steps in to settle the conflict by shooting Wilson, a gunman hired by the Riker brothers to protect their ranching interests. In a striking and original essay, 'West of Everything', Jane Tompkins has defined the Western by contrasting it with the nineteenth-century domestic novel, which, she proposes, it answers at every point. The Western contains within itself both the social and liberal narratives and lends itself to both readings; but it contains them only in order to promote the liberal over the social version. The modern Western begins effectively with John Ford's The Iron Horse of 1924 and its epic account of the making of the trans-American railroad. During the 1960s, responsive to a fresh crisis in imperialist ideologies arising especially around the Vietnam War, the Western becomes increasingly troubled.
