announce itself directly, not through a fragile
woman’s per ception), and diegesis (particularly the
characterization and explicitly presented events).
Lucy, unwittingly, becomes one of the heroes of
the movie.
When he needs to show that the characters do
not form a community—for example, at the noon-
time lunch stop at Dry Fork, where underlying ten-
sions flare up because Ringo has seated Dallas at
the same table as Lucy—Ford establishes and rein-
forces ideological and emotional differences by
alternating between (1) shots from an omniscient
point of view and (2) shots from the characters’
subjective points of view. As a result, the space at
the dinner table, even though it is physically larger,
is as socially and morally restricted as the space
inside the stagecoach. The pattern of editing here
establishes the camera’s presence as narrator, the
social stratification within the group, Lucy’s inflex-
ibility, Hatfield’s protectiveness, and Gatewood’s
pretentiousness. But it also reveals Ringo’s kind-
ness, Dallas’s vulnerability, and Ford’s sympathy for
them, which engages our sympathy.
Characters
All the characters inside the stagecoach—Dallas,
Ringo, Hatfield, Peacock, Gatewood, Dr. Boone, and
Lucy—are major, because they make the most
things happen and have the most things happen to
them. Dallas, Ringo, Dr. Boone, and Lucy are round
characters: three-dimensional, possessing several
traits, and unpredictable. The flat characters—one-
dimensional, possessing one or very few discernible
traits, and generally predictable—include Hatfield,
Peacock, and Gatewood. But Gatewood is some-
what more complicated. We know that when the
Apaches cut the telegraph wires in the opening
scene, they severed all communication between
Tonto and Lordsburg. (Although the telephone was
invented in 1876, it hadn’t yet reached Tonto.) This
incident helps to get the story underway, and is also
the reason the marshal later realizes that Gate-
wood is guilty, since, as he enters the stagecoach,
he claims to have “just” gotten a telegram. Buck
Rickabaugh and Marshal Wilcox, riding on the
bench at the exterior front of the coach, are essen-
tially minor (and flat) characters; they play less
important roles and usually function as a means of
moving the plot forward or of fleshing out the moti-
vations of the major characters.
Ringo is the primary protagonist, with a goal to
revenge his family and a (conflicting) need to find
love and settle down. But you could argue that all of
the passengers are protagonists, for they all have a
common goal: Lordsburg. The primary antagonist,
for everyone on this journey, is Geronimo, even
though he and his warriors appear on the screen
briefly. One of the many things that makes Stage-
coach’s narrative so interesting is that, while Geron-
imo is responsible for many of the narrative
obstacles, much of the story’s conflict originates in
disputes between the characters who share a com-
mon goal. For Ringo, the Plummers are the antago-
nists. They loom large in the story, but do not
appear on-screen until just before the movie ends.Narrative Structure
The narrative structure employed by the screen-
writer follows the familiar three-act paradigm
established earlier in this chapter. The first act, or
setup, establishes the world of Tonto, presented as
a typical frontier town: rough, prosperous, and
ruled by a formidable force of social prejudice, the
Ladies Law and Order League. The daily stage-
coach, a lifeline to the outer world, stops for passen-
gers, mail, news, and other necessities. In spite of
the U. S. Cavalry’s warning about Geronimo and his
troops, all its passengers have a reason for going to
Lordsburg. Thus, there are several inciting inci-
dents: some want to leave (Mr. Hatfield, Mr. Gate-
wood), some are forced to leave (Doc Boone and
Dallas), some are just passing through (Mrs. Mal-
lory, Mr. Samuel Peacock), and some are just doing
their jobs (Buck Rickabaugh, the stagecoach driver,
and Curly Wilcox, the marshal). Ringo has his own
reason for going to Lordsburg: revenge.
In the second act, we see what’s at stake: delay
and danger. While the characters share a common
goal, Lordsburg, they each have traits that color
and shape their pursuits of it. However, there are
major obstacles to their pursuit of this goal: Geron-
imo cuts the telegraph wires, the Cavalry Scout160 CHAPTER 4 ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE