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- Shane, though standing straight and proud, is bloody and beaten. Joe lifts him like a baby and carries him out to the wagon. Joe tells the bartender to put the damage on his bill. Several of the other townspeople offer to pay the bill as well, but Joe insists. They leave to go home, talking about the fight along the way.
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How does Joe help Shane?
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The relationship between them is mutual—they both give and take from each other in an easy, egalitarian fashion. Their relationship is based on their being tandem characters, who possess the same values. A detailed description and in-depth analysis of Joe Starrett in Shane.
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Analysis
Bob acknowledges that the moment Shane, his mother, and father shared in the kitchen went way over his head. He trusts that everything will be okay just like his father said. Fletcher's men leave them alone, and Fletcher himself takes off for a stint of time. However, Shane and Joe are even more watchful than they were before. Bob does not understa...
They attend Ernie's funeral, and Shane remarks that Joe made a great speech there. Shane predicts that some day Joe will be mayor. During the conversation they hear the sound of horses in the yard. Fletcher, Wilson, and two cowboys ride up, and Joe gets his gun. Fletcher has a proposition for Joe—he says that Joe and Shane are useful men and that h...
After the beating, Shane and Joe gave Fletcher's men, they all know that this time they are playing for keeps. There will be no more beating each other up—the next person to lose a fight will most likely die. The anticipation and anxiety that come with waiting to see what Fletcher's next move will be hard on Shane and Joe. The acquisition of Stark ...
Joe Starrett hires Shane as a hand on his farm, and Shane puts aside his handsome Western clothes and buys dungarees. He then helps the homesteaders to avoid intimidation by Fletcher and his men, who try to get them to abandon their farms.
- Jack Schaefer
- 1949
Joe introduces Shane to his wife Marian who is not as immediately sure of the stranger’s benevolence as Bob, but nevertheless serves him pancakes for breakfast the next morning. As the rain starts to fall, Joe convinces Shane that to leave now would be a futile exercise due to the thick mud.
At home, Marian helps Shane with his injuries and begins to weep. Joe tells her he knows she has fallen in love with Shane, and he knows Shane is the better man. Marian goes to Shane and asks him to stay to help defend the farm from Fletcher; Shane agrees. Fletcher hires the gunslinger Stark Wilson.
She brings Shane and Joe biscuits, and they pause to devour them before resuming work at the stump. Joe begins cutting at the roots, and they are able to heave the stump up a few inches. They work and work, cutting at the roots underneath and shoving against the stump with their shoulders.
The symbolic value is expressed through the fact that it is only when Shane enters into an unwritten contract with Joe that the stump is finally defeated. That unwritten contract is in the spirit of cooperation to achieve two distinct goals: Joe needs Shane’s help to remove the stump and Shane senses something about this family that makes him ...
