Western film or Nah?

Growing up I remember watching western films with my father and thinking to myself how boring I thought they were. To me every western movie was basically the same. They all followed the genre verisimilitude exactly. What is the genre of a western film? Western films are typically a story of good vs. evil and an attempt to establish some sort of law. You can always count on an action packed showdown typically a gunfight or salon brawl. Generally the characters are cowboys who are fighting Indians or other malicious cowboys who believe themselves to be above the law. The setting is always set in a desert like terrain one that makes your lips feels chapped. And horses galore, there are horse everywhere. The general theme is based on telling a story about morality.

Although The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky is a western short story I could not help but find all of the points in which it strayed from the typical western genre (personally to myself, making it more enjoyable to read and rather humorous). The first example I noticed was the uncertainty and fear that the marshal had about bringing his new wife home. Western heroes such as a marshal are thought to be tough, courageous, and bold. So seeing a sensitive or soft side of the western hero was very different than what I was expecting. Another stray from the genre that noticed was the in the end scene where there is about to be a showdown between the marshal and the town drunk but does not end like you would expect a western confrontation to conclude. In fact neither one of the characters shoots a gun; in class it was discussed that Scratchy did not shoot because he realized that he was in the presence of a woman and he wanted to be respectful. However I have to disagree, I believe that it was because he was so drunk that he had become dumbfounded when he was told by the marshal that this lady was his wife. Because he had no idea that the marshal had left town and gotten married. So in his drunken stupor he became stunned and was unable to shoot because of the news he had just received. It would also have contradicted the point of the story which is what I believe to have been a parody on the western genre because if he had continued the marshal to bear arms the marshal would no longer be the fearful hero that he was. He would have to act in an entirely different manner with courage and strength which is way different than the nervous man we got to know in the train.