J. L. Roberts - CliffsNotes on Schaefers Shane

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It is most unusual that Jack Schaefer, best known for his western novels, did not encounter the West until many of his western novels had achieved widespread fame. In fact, at the time of his writing Shane, Schaefer had never been farther west than Toledo, Ohio. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907 to an upper middle-class family. His father, Carl, was a competent lawyer and also a history buff, as well as an enthusiastic collector of Lincoln memorabilia, which was probably one of the reasons for his friendship with Carl Sandburg, who later wrote extensively about Lincoln.

Early in his life, Jack Schaefer was attracted to the written word. In high school, he edited the school literary magazine, and at Oberlin College, he took courses in creative writing along with an emphasis on the classical Greek and Roman masterpieces of literature.

In 1929, Schaefer entered Columbia University for graduate study in English. Very early, it was clear that he was not happy with the restricted view of graduate study at that time. Whereas in more recent times, the study of motion pictures has come to be accepted as a highly respected field of study, when Schaefer proposed a thesis on the development of themes in motion pictures, he was ridiculed by the conservative faculty, which looked upon movies as cheap escapism. As a result of this experience, Schaefer apparently developed a hostility against almost everything that was associated with academia and particularly with graduate study. He has stated that graduate schools encourage graduate students to impose meanings on literary works that were never intended by the original author. He also resents literary quarterlies because they are snobbish and encourage silly jargon and critical gobbledygook.

After leaving college, Schaefer worked briefly in the educational field (as assistant director of education at the Connecticut State Reformatory), but his main interest at the time was journalism. After having worked on newspapers in New Haven and Baltimore, he became one of the editorial writers for the Norfolk VirginianPilot. It was during this period of his life that he read extensively about the history of the West and also wrote Shane. In fact, Schaefers experience in writing editorials is reflected in his creative writing. His style is almost journalistic in the sense that it is unadorned and uncomplicated. His style is direct, simple, and clear. He is able, as he was in his editorials, to express his ideas with clarity and forcefulness and simplicity. For example, look at the directness, the simplicity, and crispness of the opening sentence of Shane: He rode into our valley in the summer of 89. This one simple sentence captures the essence of the novel.

Schaefer is also interested in telling a good story. He writes that he thinks and writes in the direct, old-fashioned manner and likes to believe that he is bumbling along in the ancient tradition of the tale-tellers. This view could be, in part, the result of his studies in Greek literature, where the emphasis was on the plot or the narrative, as in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

After Shane was completed in 1946, Schaefer submitted it to Argosy magazine, which published it as a three-part serial under the title of Rider from Nowhere. In 1949, Houghton Mifflin published Shane in book form, and in 1954, an illustrated edition was brought out which deleted nineteen uses of the words hell and damn because it was believed that these words might be offensive to the parents of young readers.

In 1953, Shane was made into a movie which was extremely popular. The reviews were, all in all, very favorable, and as a result, the novel also gained a wider audience. Since Shane, Schaefer has taken up residence in New Mexico and has produced a number of other novels and numerous short stories about the West. Of his novels other than Shane, the most popular and critically accepted are The Canyon (1953), which is, like Shane, another novel about growing up and about self-realization; Monte Walsh (1963), a long historical novel about the life of a cowboy; and Mavericks (1967), another tale about early cowboy days. But ultimately, Shane will probably remain Schaefers best known novel.

Jack Schaefers Shane is a guidepost by which many western novels are judged, and since its publication in 1949, it has become a classic in the literature of the American West. This is unusual because an authors first novel, as Shane was Schaefers first novel, does not often receive such high acclaim.

Another unusual aspect of this novel is that it was written by a man who had never been west of Ohio at the time he wrote the novel. Furthermore, according to Schaefers own account, he had never even read any western novels; in fact, in an interview with Henry J. Nuwer (see South Dakota Review 11, Spring, 1973), Schaefer maintained: I was not reading western stories then. I read history. I only read a few of the better westerns. In fact, if I had known of the tremendous amount of bad western writing that was flooding the market I wouldnt have written anything.

Thus, in one way, Shane can be looked upon as a historical novel about the West because Schaefers first interest was in history. Schaefer says that during the writing of Shane, he worked at two jobs sixteen hours a day! Anyway when I was through working, I read books on American history. He was particularly interested in the history of the American West, and he also maintained that his early education was extremely valuable in providing him with the ability to do full-time research into a historical field such as the American West. Schaefers knowledge of the historical times gives this novel a ring of authenticity; it reads as though he lived in this Wyoming district during the time of its settlement.