The Pioneer Wedding of Charlie McCorry and Laurie Jorgensen
in The Searchers, directed by John
Ford, 1956.
The wedding
scene portrays a complex and meaningful expression of American cultural history.
It depicts a proposed ritual of great significance in the lives of frontier
pioneers and aligns the film with other great Westerns which are ‘about the
founding or early struggling stages of modern bourgeois.’ (Robert Pippin). A
lively, wedding scene replete with bonhomie, fine clothes and good food may not
appear to be the most appropriate scene in which to analyse the dominant myths
of the legendary American West. Using the framework of Kitses binary
oppositions, this essay will explore the insertion of a joyous community
celebration into a powerful, Western revenge/quest narrative. It will demonstrate
aspects of the mythic West being undermined by changing economic and social
conditions, particularly for women.
The warm
and snug interior scene in the Jorgenson’s home resonates as a collective
concept for civilisation, community, family and protection. Looking in to the
dance floor, the camera angle emphasises the cordial union and genial coming
together of the masculine and feminine: energetic men and women who will
succeed despite the hostile place that lies just outside. Their stoic adherence
to affable forms and patterns of civilised life are being subtly stage-managed
by the mother and the bride who remain, true to Western genre conventions, mainly
invisible. The furnishings, crockery and the prized blue ornaments around the
roaring fire aspire to convince the spectator of a romanticised, idealistic way
of living, a civilisation uniquely recognised as American. These artefacts also
indicate the presence of improved trade and communication networks to
previously isolated communities, and thereby tying the West into a national
consumer culture.
Although
the wedding rituals demonstrate the expansion of middle class culture into the
West, Laurie Jorgensen’s choice of bridegroom appears to position her centrally
in the pragmatism of the frontier and the wilderness. She has forsaken the
possibility of romantic love with Martin Pawley and accepted the necessity of
marriage for practical reasons, to have a partner in land and labour. There is not a sense, from an examination of
the father figure portrayed by Lar Jorgensen, that she has complied with any
strong, patriarchal authority. She has accepted doltish Charlie McCorry in a
solipsist gesture as a husband she can mould and influence.
The wider
availability of print culture due to improved communications may also have
influenced Laurie to navigate carefully among conflicting desires for love, economic partnership, and shared power
within a relationship. (Cynthia Prescott 2007) The film gives no hint as to McCorry’s
economic prospects, but as a second-generation frontier woman, Laurie would
expect that he demonstrates kindness and genteel ‘Eastern’ behaviour.
The wedding is subtly revealing of a
further influence from the East in the form of a new technology which was
impacting women’s domestic work. (Prescott) Products of the highly prized sewing
machine are much in evidence in the wedding party clothes; the tucks, frills
and bustles compete with any illustrations in Eastern magazines. It can be
inferred that Mrs Jorgenson had already negotiated any domestic power struggle to
purchase a sewing machine and show that women’s work was sufficiently valuable
to warrant a significant financial investment.
Both factors point to changing
social conditions, where bourgeois virtues, especially ‘the domestic virtues, are
gaining a psychological grip in an environment where the heroic and martial
virtues were so important.’ (Pippin)
In the characters of Mrs Jorgensen and Laurie there is little to suggest that they
are subjected to the traditional harsh frontier female labours such as
described in the work of Lilian Schlissel.
Thus, the
wedding dance scene questions some of the dominant myths of the West. The whole
sequence takes place indoors, in a domesticated female space. Surrounded by
their friends and neighbours, brought together through the power of female
networks, there is little evidence of the isolated homesteader family. There is
no suggestion of the harsh and hostile landscape outside. In addition, the men are
enclosed and contained within the space and appear to have made a transition to
the refinements of civilisation, dressed in their immaculate city suits and no
red kerchiefs in sight. Only one set of spurs is noted and they are soon
removed – a reminder of the extreme respect for the occasion. The men are teamed
happily together in dancing and socialising and share much good humour
witnessing the absurd brawl between Laurie’s’ competing suitors. Meanwhile, we
see no sign of rugged, dusty individuals propping up the bar. That is, until
the appearance of the emblematic and taciturn Ethan Edwards, the quintessential
rugged cowboy hero, we are reminded of the violence and savagery in the ‘reel’
West, just outside on the Plains.
In conclusion,
using Kitses binary oppositions, the scene is situated in terms of the changing
social conditions of the West and their impact on women’s lives. In the closing
sequence of the scene it is noted how the masculine/outsider individual risks being
ignored by the more important, feminised pre-occupations of the community. A community
whose future is being more and more influenced by the refinements and products
of the East.
The Searchers, 11:00 22/07/2014, FilmFour, 140
mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/00532EB8 (Accessed
24 Feb 2017)
Hearne, Joanna. “Book Review:Horizons West: Directing the
Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood.” (2006). Great Plains Quarterly.
Paper 157.
Pippin,
Robert, B. “What Is a Western? Politics and Self Knowledge in John Ford’s The
Searchers.”
Prescott, Cynthia Culver. ""Why She Didn't Marry Him":
Love, Power, and Marital Choice on the Far Western Frontier." Western
Historical Quarterly 38, no. 1 (2007): 25-45. http://www.jstor.org.winchester.idm.oclc.org/stable/25443458.
Schlissel, Lillian. “Women’s Diaries on the Western Frontier.”
Brooklyn College.
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