The setting of Shane is of central importance to the novel's themes and characters. Like American writer Stephen Crane before him, Schaefer deals with a transitional period in American history, the twilight of the western frontier as it gave way to the more cultivated, domesticated, and settled ways of the industrialized East. The Starretts and the other farming families in the valley represent this new wave of domesticity and civilization that spread across the country in the late 1800s. On the other hand, the gunfighter Shane and the greedy cattleman Luke Fletcher exemplify the frontier way of life that is about to be displaced by the advent of the "New West." Ironically, both Shane, the hero of this novel, and Fletcher, his antagonist, have outlived the historical period in which they grew up and flourished. The West's future, Schaefer makes clear, belongs to people such as the Starretts...