The Wounded Hero in the Western Films of Howard Hawks

Life Blumberg (University of Iowa)

While Howard Hawks’ film Red River (1948) has been noted for its classical associations such as the Homeric ethos of the hero and the overtones of Orestes and Hesiod, not much as been said about his other westerns. Although these tend to lack the grand epic flavor of Red River, they all focus on one very important Sophoclean theme, that of the individual alienated from society by a wound both physical and psychological which must be healed in order for that individual to be re-integrated into society and in order for that society to accomplish its own goals. Attendant upon this theme is Hawks’ concern with the education of young men, their role models, and the future societal implications of their development.

In the western, the physical wound of Philoctetes becomes the crippling psychological wound of alcoholism. In Hawks’ loose trilogy Rio Bravo (1959), El Dorado (1966), and Rio Lobo (1970), there is consistently one character who was once part of the law, a deputy or a sheriff, who has since lost his place in society and his self-respect because of alcoholism. During the course of these films, some life-threatening danger, in the form of outlaws and unethical ranchers, menaces the town and people this person is supposed to protect. In order to break his destructive habit, the man requires the help not only of an old friend from the period before his debilitation, but also the watchful eyes of a young man eager for proper examples of masculinity and heroic behavior. The relationship of the mentor is always a primary concern for Hawks, and thus the man is motivated to cure himself because of the realization of his own bestial actions as actuated by the evaluating presence of his friend and the young man. Thus, in wishing to appear more worthwhile and heroic in the eyes of the young ephebe, he realizes that his heroic qualities are inevitably tied to his interactions with society and consequentially begins to desire reconciliation with that society. This reconciliation is achieved through the triad’s successful completion of the task before them – the defeat of the brigands or ranchers – with physical and psychological wounds healed.

There are inherent similarities in westerns and in Greek tragedy in expressing and shaping national identity. These similarities have encouraged a critical approach to westerns which has been eager to reveal the classical heroic archetypes in American mythmaking. For Howard Hawks, however, it is above all the Sophoclean hero who best expresses the dilemmas of the American hero – his alienation from society, the necessity of reconciliation, the essential conflict between his values and those of the younger generation, and the mediation of those two through his own heroic exempla. Moreover, while an emphasis on Sophoclean and Homeric traits is characteristic of heroic character in classic westerns, for Hawks the Sophoclean model prevails because it is most fitting for the post-war age and to the themes he associates with that age – most notably the wounded hero’s need of amity and the benefit that comes to society through this renewed concord with the hero.