Ethan Edwards

"Let's go home, Debbie"

- Ethan's famous line towards the ending.

Ethan Edwards is the main protagonist of the 1956 film, The Searchers. He's a racist towards Native Americans including the Comanches who killed most of his family, and kidnapped his niece.

Before the film
Ever since a group of Indians had killed Ethan's mother, Ethan had been very close to his family. He would talk about his interests with his brother Aaron and had in general had a loving relationship with them. Then he had suddenly abandoned them to fight in the Civil War as a Confederate solider against the Indians, including Chief Scar. He had refused to admit defeat during the war, and it's been suggested that he has robbed some Yankee banks during the war right before he had arrived at his brother Aaron's place at the beginning of the film.

Some time before the events of the film, Ethan had a recused an orphaned Martin from a Indian slaughter and got to know him as he brought Martin to Aaron's family where Aaron adopted him.

First day back
He's first seen returning to his family's home on horseback after previously leaving to fight in the Civil War. His family greeted him and welcomed from back to the cabin. Inside, Ethan had mistook his niece Debbie for Lucy (due to being away from them so long.)

During supper, Aaron's adopted son, Martin arrived and greeted Ethan who refused to acknowledge him as a true relative due to his Indian blood.

After supper, Ethan sat in a rocking chair as Ben asked about Ethan's experience as a Confederate solider which Ethan doesn't want to talk about. Oblivious to the unspoken overtones already established, the kids are excited to see Ethan and gather around him as he gives away mementos of his past to his brother's children. Debbie tells her Uncle Ethan that Lucy is wearing the gold locket that he gave her when she was a little girl, and she would like one too.

Ethan retorts when asked about Yankee dollars. Later that night before bedtime, Ethan is left alone on the porch with only the dog for company and a sad, reflective look on his face. As he turns back to look into the door frame of the house, he sees Aaron taking Martha to their bedroom and closing their door for the night.

Second day back
The next morning, during breakfast, Aaron's norwegian neighbor, Mr. Lars Jorgensen, and Captain/Reverend Samuel Johnson Clayton arrive with a posse of local folks.

The Reverend greeted Martha as "Sister Edwards." They're concerned about Comanche marauders and Indian uprisings. The Indians had stolen some cattle from the Lars Jorgensen ranch nearby, and they want to hunt for them. Sitting down to breakfast and coffee, he asks if Debbie was baptised yet. Aaron and Marty are deputized to help the Captain and the Texas Rangers find the cattle thieves.

During the deputy oath, Ethan walks into the scene from the background. Clayton greets "the prodigal brother" and wonders about Ethan's whereabouts following the Civil War and the South's surrender three years earlier. Still linked by his oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, Ethan claims he never relinquished his Confederate cloak or saber after the surrender.

Lured from the ranch
Later that day, Ethan and the posse leave the cabin on horseback. Marty calls Ethan "uncle" along the way, while Ethan states he could just call him "Ethan". After riding 40 miles away from their homesteads, the posse finds their cattle slaughtered but not eaten. Ethan suddenly realized they had been tricked into abandoning their reaching and leaving them unprotected and races back to Aaron's place when he realized they could be attacked, while a section of the troop went to protect another potential target, but by the time Ethan and Martin got back to Edwards' place, it was too late, and Ethan's brother, sister-in-law and nephew had all been killed by the Indians, while the nieces where being held hostage by them. He keeps Marty from seeing the horrible aftermath of the Comanche massacre worried that he would be paralyzed like him.

Hunting for the nieces
Ethan's posse holds a funeral in the desert for the massacred Edwards family, the assembled people gathered around the graves sing Shall We Gather at the River. Ethan tries to hurry the proceedings along, impatient and contemptuous of the ritualistic customs that hold society together, and ready to begin the search. He was more interested in vengeance than ritual, and tells Reverend Clayton as he authoritatively moves away and draws other mourners with him to abruptly end the ceremony.

Ethan decides to take matters into his own hands, and the search party is reassembled and gives chase following the Comanche's trail, composed of Ethan, Marty, teenaged Brad Jorgensen (Lucy's sweetheart and fiancee), Captain Clayton, and other rangers. Ethan sets out to find his two nieces, Lucy and Debbie, motivated by his love for Martha and a homicidal rage against the Indians, unaware this was the start of a five-year journey. Mrs. Jorgensen pleads with an inattentive Ethan to not seek vengeance before he begins his obsessive search.

Along the way, the searchers find a Comanche buried under a large sandstone rock. Ethan takes his gun and shoots two bullets at the Indian corpse, aiming at its eyes. Although Reverend Clayton interprets his senseless, excessive act as vindictive and contemptuous, Ethan explains how his defilement of the Indian has thwarted the spiritual belief of the Comanche, causing his spirit to wander forevermore.

The group's plan is to find and ransom the girls alive rather than attack the Comanches and provoke retaliation against the two hostages. But Ethan is confrontational to the group and to Marty. He is more interested in vengeance than in finding the girls alive. When the Reverend whether asks him if he wants to quit his vengeful search, Ethan vows to keep searching.

The first Comanche encounter
The next day, Comanches appear on the upper horizon and surround Ethan's troop by flanking them between two parallel lines, and chase them across river. Before they attack again, the posse takes a defensive position on the far bank of the river. Clayton offers his Bible to one of the wounded men. Ethan recognizes the chief's "death song" before the actual attack. Mose gives his thanks. After shooting his first Indian, Martin actually cries and throws down his gun, showing more compassion for the Indians than anyone else. During the vicious attack, Ethan confidently fires away alongside Clayton.

During the withering gunfire, Clayton cries out triumphantly, but when he runs out of ammunition and curses, Ethan throws him a revolver, and jokes with him. Angered by Ethan's caustic wit, Clayton grabs the hat off his head and sails it across toward Ethan, striking him in the stomach with it. Their repetitive tossing of objects at each other conveys the delicate balance of enmity and respect that exists between them.

When the Indians retreat and carry off their dead, Ethan persists in firing upon the retreating war party with savage blood-lust, while Clayton attempts to stop him. Violently snarling back and displaying sublimated emotional hatred, Ethan tells Clayton that he wants to continue on alone without interference. Most of the posse turns back, but Ethan reluctantly takes Brad and Marty along with him to pursue them alone, and saying he would give the orders.

The troop is tired
Ethan, Martin and Brad were the only members of the troop who were still on the search. As they were walking with their horses, Ethan shares more of his Native American knowledge to the troop.

The trio of searchers find that the Comanches have broken their trail, with four horses cutting off into a narrow pass. Ethan follows the four horses to take a look while Brad and Martin circle around, warning them not to "fire a shot," "build bonfires, nor beat drums." In the day-for-night filmed scene, Ethan (without his coat) gallops out and meets them on the "far side" of the sandstone rock canyons. He is bewildered, agitated and incensed, and digs at the earth with his knife - a mimicry of the rape act he has just imagined happening. He discovers Lucy's body but hides it from the others.

Later after riding on further in the twilight, they spot the Indian campsite about a half mile away. Brad mistakenly believes he has seen Lucy in the midst of an Indian camp, but Ethan corrects him with a ferocious tone. Brad gets upset over Lucy's death with anguish and rides off into a nearly Indian camp where he's shot and killed offscreen.