The Rejection of Individual
Both Shane and Fletcher are already relics of the past. The western frontier was built on the back of rugged American individualism, but that time is past. The cooperation between Shane and Joe necessary to dig up the stump is a metaphor for the need to change the paradigm of the settling of the frontier to one community that rejects the lone wolf. Shane recognizes this and accepts it; Fletcher recognizes it but is tenaciously holding onto the old ways. While the lone individual is the iconic vision of the western hero and while Shane is in many ways the epitome of that hero, it is significant that is exiled at the end while Fletcher’s resistance to change is met with a bullet.
Coming of Age
The novel is narrated by the grown-up Bob Starrett recalling Shane’s arrival into his life when he was a child. The story thus becomes one in which young Bob is taught valuable life lessons both through the eyes of a young kid indulging in hero worship and the mature recollection of an adult capable of recognizing that there was already a hero-figure in his life before Shane arrived and after he left.
An Economic Critique
Underlying the wars between ranchers and squatters is a fundamental economic ideology which the novel pursues. By staking the claim that Fletcher is no more entitled to all the land he claims than he thinks the squatters entitled to live on “his” land, the novel propose that capitalism is fundamentally about equality. Capitalism without equitable access to resources and the potential for making a living is no different than the European feudal system which America as an idea is supposed to reject outright. Shane as the hero taking the side of the squatters against the monopoly ownership of Fletcher is a confirmation that the novel espouses a system of capitalism that assumes certain elements of socialism are a requisite for equal opportunity.
Frontier Justice
Shane’s services are called upon to right a miscarriage of justice and part of the process of bringing justice is violence working outside the law. Fletcher is clearly abusing the letter of the laws of entitlement for settling land. He rules with violence in order to protect his unjust little frontier fiefdom. Shane also operates outside the law, killing when he has to. While these killings may very well be described as self-defense, that is only actual defense in a court of law. Shane never faces judicial processing to clear acquit himself of wrongdoing. The question then is whether Shane is violating justice just like Fletcher, even if not to the same degree. The answer is that while the rules of law applied to small settlements on the frontier, the process was an evolving on in which most of those settlements had first to go through a period in which lawlessness was the price to pay for bringing civilized law and order.
