Legends of the Fall

Introduction Jim Harrison’s Legends of the Fall follows the development of three sons of a Montana rancher, Colonel Ludlow. Ludlow’s disdain for the U.S. government’s treatment of Indians made him move to Montana to carve out his own existence. His wife remains back East and Ludlow raises his three boys, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. The action plays out against the Indian Wars and World War I. In the film of Harrison’s novella of the same title, the development of the three boys is comparable to their experience in the novella. In both works, their development revolves around the themes of death and survival, with Tristan discovering one must forge his own meaning of existence in order to survive. Body The three sons of Colonel Ludlow are adept at hunting and have a rapport with Native Americans in both the book and film. Samuel enlists in the War after marrying a woman, though he is a virgin. Alfred and Tristan also enlist. Samuel is killed and Tristan goes mad in his revenge of his brother’s death, scalping numerous Germans and cutting out his brother’s heart to send back home. In his interactions with his family and others and even in death, however, Tristan remains “apart, somehow solitary” (Harrison 276). Like his father, Tristan exhibits distaste over the U.S. Cavalry’s treatment of Indians. In both the film and novella, Tristan is influenced by his father’s treatise on the “Indian question,” and his father’s attitudes toward society, “Screw’m! Screw’m all! Screw the gov’m’nt” (Zwick 1994)! Tristan marries Samuel’s widow, but while lost at sea and presumed dead she marries another man. Tristan marries a young half-blooded Indian girl he calls “Two.” Set during WWI and prohibition, Tristan smuggles whiskey in from Canada for years before Two is accidentally killed. The development of