Should one travel and experience art and culture and live the adventurous life, or should one settle down with spouse and children, a mortgage, and a dreaded steady job? Each decision we face has innumerable possible choices with exponentially more possible outcomes as a result of the original decision. Each choice leads to a plethora of new choices. Finding ourselves somewhere down the road of our historical choices we often ask the age-old question of "what if?" Is happiness, or life, a destination, or a journey as is so often stated? Once some measure of joy or contentment is attained, can it be maintained? Or are we doomed to constant entropy or toil to maintain our life station, or watch it crumble?

In Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ,Ransom Stoddard, (James Stewart) finds himself recently graduated from law school. A young man with a seemingly bright future, intent on making his place in the world, armed with his law books and

The second main struggle of the film comes as a direct result of the first. Ranse Stoddard goes on to lead a successful career in law and politics built on the falsehood that he was the man who shot Liberty Valance. So, while his career was based on defending the truth of law and order, it would not have been possible had he told the truth about the legend.

As has been illustrated by this film, to struggle is human. Only through struggle do we become the people we are. Only through struggle do we become weathered and strong. The paths we choose to follow in life are not as important as the lessons we learn and the bridges we cross as we go down those roads. We can not go backwards, only ever on into the future, with the past as our guide and the present as our companion.

Stoddard's struggle is internal throughout much of the picture. His temper defies his values, as he eventually obtains a pistol despite his belief that violence is the problem, not the answer. Stoddard also struggles with some of the primitive stereo types of the west as he waits tables and washes dishes to earn his living, occupations that were typically regarded as women's work, and which earn him more humiliation than money. Stoddard labors to bring education and civilization to Shinbone through the opening of a school and attempts to teach the people of the town that only they can improve their conditions.

There are struggles for every character in this film, from the Marshall struggling between his duty of office and his cowardice, to Mr. Peabody, the newspaperman, between his natural nose for news and his natural taste for liquor. There are two main struggles however that stand out above the rest. First is the struggle for Tom Doniphon at the time of the shootout between Liberty Valance and Ranse Stoddard. Doniphon is a member of the good old boy network. Hi

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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)