![]() ![]() ![]() Doniphon saves the life of his rival for the affection of the town’s most attractive woman and then declines into drink and despair upon being rejected. ![]() Shane is shot, perhaps mortally, and in any event, he knows he must now leave the valley he had come to call home. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Tom Doniphon intervenes to shoot Valance, another terrorizing stooge of a different cattle baron, who is about to kill a brave but hapless lawyer, Ranse Stoddard, who has himself challenged Valance to a duel.Īll three act at potential cost to themselves, and in the last two cases, the costs are realized even as they protect the public. In Shane, the eponymous gunfighter, who has sworn off violence, takes up arms again when a cattle baron and his goons insist on terrorizing the peaceful homesteaders to drive them off their land. But when each of the town’s upstanding citizens finds some reason to demur, he confronts the villains alone. In High Noon, Marshal Will Kane tries to round up a local posse to protect the town from a returning group of outlaws. The central theme of the classic Western captures a fundamental aspect of America’s self-image: the willingness of a good man to use his freedom to sacrifice himself for the public good. ![]()
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