Young Bob Starrett sees the man riding towards their ranch from several miles away. His clothes are unusual, with dark trousers, a finespun shirt and a black hat, "with a creased crown and a wide curling brim swept down in front to shield the face." But what impressed Bob even more was the man himself. "He was clean-shaven and h is face was lean and hard and burned from high forehead to firm, tapering chin. His eyes seemed hooded in the shadow of the hat's brim. He came closer, and I could see that this was because the brows were drawn in a frown of fixed and habitual alertness. Beneath them the eyes were endlessly searching from side to side and forward, checking off every item in view, missing nothing..."The stranger stops at the Starretts, requesting water. Bob's father, Joe Starrett welcomes him, offering him water and an invitation to stay for dinner and rest over night. He accepts and reveals his name to be Shane. After bringing his horse into the barn, the three head into the house where Joe introduces Shane to his wife Marian. Supper is hearty with Joe, Shane and Bob trying to eat as much of Marian's delicious cooking. Bob's mother and father are unsuccessful in their attempts to learn more about Shane. Bob notes, "His past was fenced as tightly as our pasture. All they could learn was that he was riding through, taking each day as it came, with nothing particular in mind except maybe seeing a part of the country he had not seen before."
Afterwards, sitting on the porch with Shane, Joe tells him that "The open range can't last forever" as it is a poor business, using up too much space for too little return. Instead, putting up fences to grow crops to help support the farm while having a small, well fed herd that is larger and better beef than what ranchers like Fletcher who's on the opposite side of the river, raise. Joe reveals that Fletcher can no longer use the range on this side of the river because of the settlers coming in and laying claim to parcels of land. After Bob is sent to bed he overhears his parents talking about Shane and his father telling his mother that Shane is dangerous but not to them.
The next morning a sudden storm has Shane delayed again from leaving and Joe convinces him to stay so he can show him around the farm and also rest his horse. As Joe shows him around, with Bob tagging along, Shane notices the big old stump with the huge roots that came out in every direction. While discussing the stump, Jake Ledyard arrives on his sorrel pulling a buckboard wagon. He has Joe's new seven-pronged cultivator which he offers to him for the price of a hundred and ten. But Shane tells Joe that he's seen the same in a store in Cheyenne for sixty. Eventually Joe and Jack settle on the price of eighty. Shane decides to work on the stump and the two men eventually chop through the roots and upend the huge stump. For Bob watching his father and Shane, it the most exciting thing he's ever seen.
The next day Joe Starrett asks Shane to stay on and help him get the farm in shape for the winter. Shane correctly understands that Fletcher is "crowding Joe" and wants his land. He agrees to stay on. Although it's obvious he's no farmer, Shane keeps up with Joe Starrett, never shirking even the hardest work.
Things remain quiet for most of the summer as Fletcher has travelled to Fort Bennett in Dakota and then onto Washington where he's trying to "get a contract to supply beef to the Indian agent at Standing Rock, The Big Sioux reservation over beyond the Black Hills." But when summer draws to a close, Fletcher returns to the valley, he is determined to run Joe Starrett and the other farmers off their land. With the nearest marshal a hundred miles away and no sheriff in their small town, the farmers are vulnerable. They know the ownership of their land is guaranteed by the government and are intent on staying. It soon becomes apparent Fletcher will use any means to scare off the farmers, but what he doesn't count on is a real man like Shane who is brave enough to stand up to him.
Discussion
Shane is one of the most popular Western novels of the twentieth century. The Western genre is probably one of the least favourite genres of fiction. Western novels are generally set in the American West, during the latter half of the 1800's. Western novels commonly have plots that are centered around a lone cowboy or gunfight who roams from town to town, mysterious, brooding and dangerous. There are many common storylines: in Shane the plot centers around homesteaders pitted against a cattle rancher's attempts to drive them off their land. Because the usual path of justice via a sheriff, courts and a judge are not possible, "frontier justice" is administered by way of gunfights. The most famous and popular authors of western novels include Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour.
Shane is told from the point of view of Bob Starrett whose parents are homesteaders. Through the eyes of a young boy, the reader learns about the qualities that define a real man; loyalty, honesty, self-control, watchfulness, and kindness. Both Joe Starrett and Shane exhibit the qualities of real men and are admired by Bob.
At the very beginning of the novel,when Marian questions her husband taking on Shane as hired help because he is so obviously not a farmer, Joe points out to her that although Shane might not have the knowledge of farming, his other qualities are more valuable. "What a man knows isn't important. It's what he is that counts...Anything he does will be done right...He knows I'm in a spot and he's not the man to leave me there. Nobody'll push him around or scare him away. He's my kind of man."
Joe's assessment of Shane is proven to be correct early on when he insists on taking the pitchfork into town to get it welded. Joe is reluctant to let Shane go alone, because he suspects that Fletcher's men will go after him just as they did to Morley, the man who previously worked for Joe. However, Shane is not put off by this, he goes to town to face whatever might happened. While there he doesn't allow one of Fletcher's men to goad him into a fight. Instead he shows restraint and self-control, recognizing that Chris has courage to do what Fletcher has asked of him, that is to confront Shane. Later on in the novel, Shane is confronted by a group of Fletcher's men at the saloon. Bob who has stationed himself outside because he's not allowed in the saloon, sees the group coming and rushes in to warn Shane. But Shane refuses to run away, instead standing his ground and fighting them even though the odds are very much against him.
True to the western formula, Shane metes out "frontier justice" several times, the first when Chris continues to make derogatory remarks all over town about Joe Starrett and the other farmers. Yet it isn't something Shane relishes. Instead he feels sadness over having to fight Chris and tells Red Marlin to take care of him as Chris "... has the makings of a good man." Shane is proved correct at the end of the novel when Chris shows up at the Starrett farm, asking Joe Starrett to take him on as hired help.
Shane delivers true "frontier justice" at the climax of the novel in a confrontation between himself and Wilson, the gunslinger Fletcher has hired to provoke the farmers. Wilson tricks Ernie Wright into a gunfight, killing him. Shane now knows Fletcher's game and knows he must act. The person Fletcher and Wilson really want is Joe Starrett because he's the only farmer who has been courageous enough to stand up to Fletcher. Shane knows that Joe will fight Wilson if he has to and he will die. There is only one way to see justice done and there is only one person who can accomplish it.
Bob is puzzled by the fact that Shane doesn't carry his gun around with him. In the lawless West, carrying a gun defines a man. Bob asks his father if it's because Shane doesn't know how to use it properly. Here Schaefer employs both irony and foreshadowing; Shane is actually a deadly shot and his not wearing his gun suggests that he will use it in the future. Shane's decision not to wear his gun is based on the fact that he considers it a tool, as he tells young Bob: "A gun is just a tool. No better and no worse than any other tool, a shovel -- or an axe or a saddle or stove or anything. Think of it always that way. A gun is as good -- and as bad -- as the man who carries it. Remember that." It isn't something that makes him a man, which he points out to Wilson, Fletcher's gunslinger later on."You talk like a man because of that flashy hardware you're wearing. Strip it away and you'd shrivel down to boy size." In the end, after Shane confronts Wilson and then leaves town, Bob remembers Shane exactly as he wanted him to. "I would see the man and the weapon wedded in the one indivisible deadliness. I would see the man and the tool, a good man and a good tool, doing what had to be done."
Shane is an slow paced novel that sets the stage for the inevitable confrontation between Shane and Fletcher. Although some of the language is dated, especially with a few derogatory references to Native Americans, Shane is still an important novel for the themes and symbols of manhood that it tackles.
Book Details:
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 1949
214 pp.
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