The man who shot Liberty Valance

Matheson talks about how people settle their own problem and the law does not play an important role. Matheson say “In Shinbone, the individual does not enforce the law; he is the law.”(pg 896) This is exactly what we see in the movie “the man who shot Liberty Valence.” We see that there is a formal law in Shinbone, but nobody even bothers to follow it. The marshal himself is not competent. He is scared of Liberty and Tom. When Stoddard asks him to arrest Liberty showing him the territorial law in the book, he is really scared and straight away gets away with it. Whenever he know that Liberty is in Shinbone is he really scared and tries to stay away from his sight, as if Liberty does anything wrong people are not able to approach him and ask him to take some action. The marshal always avoids being in the same place where Liberty is.

Matheson also states that “Doniphon, who is even tougher than Valance, is unquestionably his own moral centre because he can do what Stoddard cannot- live with the fact that he cold-bloodedly murdered another human being.” In the movie we see at the end during the election, when people start blaming and pointing out fingers at Stoddard that he shot and “innocent man” Liberty Valance for no reason. And say that he is a murderer he cannot live with that fact. He gets out of the hall and decided to go back to him home that is in the east. But, when Tom tells him that it was him who had shot Liberty and Stoddard did not shoot him, he is relieved. He then goes back in with all the confidence and not being guilty of anything. This shows how much it mattered to Stoddard that he had killed a man, and he felt that he was guilty of a murder and he had no right to participate in election, whereas to Doniphon it doesn’t even matter. He is fine with it. Matheson clearly shows the difference between a man from the East and a man from the West.