WOUNDS THAT WILL NOT HEAL: HEROISM AND INNOCENCE IN SHANE AND THE ILIAD

Abstract

George Stevens’ film Shane, which dates from 1953, remains an especially successful version of the heroic paradigm that is established in Homer’s Iliad. Just as Achilles, the hero of Homer’s poem, considers abandoning the war at Troy in favor of a long and uneventful life at home, the film’s mysterious hero makes a futile attempt to abandon his violent past for a “normal life” as an ordinary farmer in the American west. In the end, however, the threatened status of the domestic world Shane is trying to enter makes it impossible for him to renounce his heroic nature and violent past. Because he wishes to save his newfound friends, Shane, like Achilles, is compelled to become a hero once again. As a result, once Shane succeeds in rescuing his friends from danger, he is compelled to leave the community he yearned to join and for whose sake he risked his life.

This paper examines some of the ways in which the film’s portrayal of the hero, Shane, echoes that of the Iliad. In doing so, it attempts to cast light on how the great classical texts continue to exert a powerful influence on modern works of art and on how those modern works both embody the classical heritage and also adapt it to fit the needs of their own times. The paper also devotes some attention to the highly charged issues of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” culture and to the considerable benefits of using films to bring the classics alive for students of today.