Jacob Noble: Shane Discussion

 While it is true that the novel concerns itself primarily with manhood, a close look reveals that there are subtle concerns about masculinity. At various points things that Mrs. Starrett does and as are referred to as being "women's ideas" and a great deal is made early on about her inability to understand what the men are doing outside, and downright calling them foolish for it even though she later has her own stump. Masculinity only seems to take a back seat to Manhood because women are so strictly delegated to their separate sphere.

Shane's line to Fletcher contains the seed of a contradiction that sprouts later`when Shane retrieves his gun and Bob realizes it is "part of the man" (241) and Shane has been incomplete without it for this entire time. The earlier scene where Bob gets an old, revolver that doesn't work also reemphasizes the importance of guns in terms of manhood, as it shows that Bob is still a boy, while suggesting his growth towards manhood, and Shane's ability to teach him how to use a gun properly seems a proof of his own manhood. Bob also waiting for "the time I could have one that would really shoot." (140) because that would be proof of his growing out of boyhood and into manhood. It is clear from these moments that guns were an integral part of what it meant to be a man in the Territories, yet Shane so clearly insults Wilson's manhood because of his guns, and Shane is shown in his own right to be more of a man early on for being comfortable without a gun when "Most men did not feel full dressed without one." (126) So, the gun comes across as both an inseparable part of manhood and at the same time something boyish that must be outgrown. Perhaps Schaefer is playing off the practical necessity of guns in the largely lawless world of the Territories while at the same time remarking on the danger and violence they represent. A man should know how to use a gun, but even more a man should know how not to. A boy will fail to make the second distinction.

What seems far more troubling is that the book only seems to recognize three males in the entire book as men. Joe Starrett and Shane are both described clearly as men, and it is suggested by the end that so is Chris, or he's at least on his way. Every other male seems to be either still a boy, or something else. Something that might be called a man, but really isn't. The other homesteaders all follow Starrett like scared sheep, while the cowboys are, well, cowBOYs, as is Wilson by Shane's accusation, and Fletcher is of course a weasel of some breed. In a land where so few boys ever grow into proper men one has to wonder what becomes of the identity of all of the rest of them.

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