How do you interpret the final scene?

I'd say you nailed it. Ethan can help tame the west, but he can't be a part of its development.

Exactly he just doesn't fit into that society.

Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .

The look on Debbie's face is pretty haunting too. Ethan at least gets to wander away.

Good point. Debbie looks so overwhelmed as she walks through the door. I always wonder what became of her and how she got on getting used to that society again. I think Martin would have supported her a great deal though.




Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .

That is what I think. Any comments?

The outside world isn't the Indian world, it's the Cowboy. Ethan has been the wandering samurai of the west. Except they samurai are an anachronism once organized civilization takes over.

Hello Maddy. Very thoughtful and thought provoking post regarding Ethan.

Hi kbarada. Thank you very much.


I'm not so sure he wants to be part of that culture anyway. He lost the love of his life and fought hard for a lost cause (the civil war). These events seem to have caused him to be disillusioned with life and to be a loner. As the door closes in the final scene to the strains of "Ride Away", I think he does just that. He continues his wandering, looking for some meaning in his life.

I think he might actually want to live in that world. He strikes me as a free spirit but I always got the impression that his wanderings were not of his choosing. He doesn't fit in anywhere and so he is forced to move from place to place, not because he wants to but because he has to.

I've always wondered if the films title(in addition to Ethan and Martin looking for Debbie) actually refers to Ethan, always searching for somewhere to call home and be welcome.



Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .

>>I think it represents Ethan forever trapped between two cultures. He's too violent and rough to stay with that community and he wouldn't fit in with the Indian's either. He's an outcast, not really fitting in anywhere.<<

John Wayne frequently plays what scholar Richard Slotkin called the "frontier hero," a character type unique to American culture who appears time and again from the early 19th Century throught he late 20th Century. The frontier hero exists to protect "civilized" America from the the savage elements at its boundary. As you say, he straddles the boundary and adopts the techniques of the savage to defeat it. However, he is an outcast -- never married, never having children -- because if he fully assimilates back into the culture he protects, his own savagery will corrupt it. By the same token, the rest of us cannot emulate him. We have to have him out there on the border, but if we follow his lead our culture will become savage. Another perfect example of this type hero is Dirty Harry. He's there for the "dirty" jobs, and he bends or breaks the rules to protect us. However, when we try to institutionalize his methods -- as in Magnum Force -- everything breaks down.

One interesting theory about the final scene of The Searchers is that it is a fantasy or dream sequence. Ethan is in fact dead or dying (having been shot in the Indian camp), and this is his dying delusion. Notice that no one looks at or speaks to Ethan in that entire sequence. It's as if he isn't there. And of course, the door closes placing everyone in the comfort of the home and leaving him isolated on the other side of the black door.

This is not my theory (it first appeared in a book written by a well-known academic), and when I pointed this out over on IMDB I got lots of strong pushback, including some very hostile criticism. I haven't watched the movie in a while, but there's a scene in the Indian village in which Ethan comes riding up and three well-positioned Indians all take aim and fire at him with rifles and pistols. It's very hard to see how none of them hit him. It's immediately after that that he rides out alone to the cave (also a very "pregnant" image) and rescues Debbie. Up until that moment, everything in that movie has been preparing us for this reunion to be an execution. Ethen was obessed with obliterating wht he saw as a totally corrupted being. But like throwing a light switch, everything changes, reverses, and the fantasy begins.

Just sayin'.

Great thread!

Thanks! 


The gunfighters/antihero characters have no place in the "new" western frontier. Not unless an act of violence needs to be committed.

Exactly. I always found that the most interesting aspect of the film, the civilised west needs Ethan and his violence at times for protection. Once he had saved them they would most likely exclude him from their society, or he himself wouldn't feel like he fitted in with their way of life.



Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .

Quanah Parker rides into Fort Sill with the last significant band of Comanches in 1875. The last of the Sioux are brought into the reservation in 1877. Only the Apaches manage to hang on for a few more years in their remote out of the way hideouts. Basically the end of the frontier is at hand as the movies closes.

The "old west" is ending.