By Monica Doumit

Two people can journey together with the exact same reason for setting out, but achieve completely different results.  The path matters, to be sure, as does the goal.  But so too does the heart of the person making the journey and their motivations for doing so.

Released 60 years ago this year, The Searchers is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made.  It stars John Wayne as the mysterious Ethan Edwards, a civil war veteran and all-round complex individual.

For those not familiar with the film, it begins with Ethan arriving at the home of his brother, Aaron.  Ethan had been away to fight in the Civil War, but fails to provide an explanation for his whereabouts for the three years since the war ended.  He is greeted by Aaron and his wife, Martha, their son Ben and daughters Debbie and Lucy, as well as Martin Pawley, a young man who – it seems – Ethan had found as a toddler near the place where Martin’s parents had been brutally murdered.  Aaron and his family had taken Martin in as a son.

In the days that follow, Ethan and a group of rangers leave the home to recover the cattle of a neighbour which had been stolen.  The theft, however, was just a Comanche ploy to lead the group of men away from their families, and they return to find Aaron, Martha and Ben brutally murdered, and Lucy and Debbie abducted.

The rangers all begin searching for the girls, but after a time, some return home or are killed in battle.  It is just Ethan and Martin who remain to the end, despite Ethan’s insistence that he go it alone.  After Lucy’s raped and murdered body is found, the search becomes for Debbie alone, and it is this journey, which ends up spanning five years, which is the subject of the film.

Commentaries on this film often focus on the character of Ethan.  People speculate on what his experiences might have been during the war, where he was during the “missing” three years and whether he at one time had a relationship with the murdered wife of his brother.  His complexity is deeply interesting to many fans of this film.

But I was far more captivated by the character of Martin.

At different times during the journey, it was open for Martin to stop the search and instead look after his own interests.  There was a girl who he loved and planned to marry, and whose father offered him a job and a home, but he didn’t take it up so that he could continue his search.  There was Ethan’s insistence that Martin stay behind, and his fairly constant (and unkind) reminders to Martin that he was not part of the family and so not obligated to continue.

The contrast between the characters of Ethan and Martin is striking, and is most clearly demonstrated in their apparent motivations.

Ethan’s motivations for the search are not clear, likely because they are multifaceted.  He wants to rescue Debbie, of course, but also avenge the death of his family.  There is also his overt hatred of the Comanches, and the suggestion that his experiences in the war and afterward weigh heavily on him; as if there are things he has done for which he is trying to atone.

Like Ethan, Martin’s path had not been easy.  His parents had been murdered, so too the family who took him in.  Even so, his motivation appeared to be simple: he loved Debbie as if she was his own sister and refused to give up searching for her, even if that meant putting his own life at risk (or at least on hold.)

The contrast is also seen at the film’s conclusion.  Martin is satisfied, and returns home to get married and begin his own life.  But Ethan seems to be searching.  He spent five years directed towards a goal which, when achieved, seemed to leave him in the same state of discontent and loss that he was in when he began.

In a sense, it was necessary for Ethan to search for Debbie and avenge the death of his family, so all he has achieved by the end is really his duty.  And that is rarely satisfying, particularly when so much has been lost in the process.  It was not so for Martin, because his obligation to search for Debbie was one freely chosen, borne out of love.  His approach teaches us that sometimes, the bonds of kinship are those which we willingly assume.

In terms of what this film might have to say to us as Catholics, I think it asks us to examine our motivations for our own search, and whether we are seeking to serve others and pursue their good, becoming the best version of ourselves in the process, or seeking merely to fulfil and an obligation, exact vengeance or atone for the past.  While we may achieve the same result, the person we are at the final step will depend on our reasons for taking the first.