• DOI:10.3200/PPSC.38.2.69-78
• Corpus ID: 144615334

Heroic Virtue and the Limits of Democracy in John Ford's The Searchers

@article{Alvis2009HeroicVA,
  title={Heroic Virtue and the Limits of Democracy in John Ford's The Searchers},
  author={J. David Alvis and John E. Alvis},
  journal={Perspectives on Political Science},
  year={2009},
  volume={38},
  pages={69 - 78}
}

• J. Alvis, J. Alvis
• Published 1 April 2009
• Art
• Perspectives on Political Science

The American imagination has always been captivated by the drama of the frontier, where a civilization is eked out among the brutal forces of nature by a few heroic individuals' force of strength and resolute courage. It seems mysterious why we, accustomed to the comforts of civil life and no longer precariously dependent on a few heroic souls, spend so much time employing the benefits of modern civilization, such as art and technology, in an effort to reconstruct the moments when civilization seemed so fragile. The success of the frontier in the American imagination may point to a partial failure in our own founding. Although we celebrate our triumph over the rude forces of nature by our common contribution to the social compact, our preoccupation with the frontier in literature and film suggests that we may doubt whether those achievements are in fact the products of our own virtue. John Ford's The Searchers offers a probing treatment of the tension between the virtues that are necessary to a successful founding and those that are necessary for the continued success of society. Departing from the standard form of the typical Western, in which the unqualified merits of the all-American hero triumph over the savage forces of nature, Ford chooses for the movie's central figure Ethan Edwards, a man whose heroic qualities are matched by his savagery. Hence, Ford's film not only points to the ambiguous qualities of civilization's heroes but also provides a lesson to those who admire those heroes and qualities.