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American frontier in modern day
The significance of the frontier in American
Westerns movies
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Recommended: American frontier in modern day
According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, frontier as an adjective means “a new field for exploitative or developmental activity”. In Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Echoes in the City of the Angels”, Stewart Edward White’s “The Rules of the Game”, Upton Sinclair’s “Oil!”, and Louis Adamic’s “Laughing in the Jungle” Los Angeles is described as a frontier town. Los Angeles, long ago, used to be the Wild West. This is the basis of reasoning behind labeling Los Angeles as a frontier town. Jackson, White, Adamic, and Sinclair all establish Los Angeles as a frontier town after depicting its plethora of Wild West imagery, its developmental activity, and its exploitative activity. The Wild West is also referred to as the American frontier due to the numerous …show more content…
The setting of the essay is Los Angeles in the 1800’s during the Wild West era, and the protagonist of the story is the brave Don Antonio. One example of LA’s Wild West portrayal is that LA has “soft, rolling, treeless hills and valleys, between which the Los Angeles River now takes its shilly-shallying course seaward, were forest slopes and meadows, with lakes great and small. This abundance of trees, with shining waters playing among them, added to the limitless bloom of the plains and the splendor of the snow-topped mountains, must have made the whole region indeed a paradise” (Jackson 2). In the 1800’s, LA is not the same developed city as today. LA is an undeveloped land with impressive scenery that provides Wild West imagery. One characteristic of the Wild West is the sheer commotion and imagery of this is provided on “the first breaking out of hostilities between California and the United States, Don Antonio took command of a company of Los Angeles volunteers to repel the intruders” (15). This sheer commotion is one of methods of Wild West imagery Jackson …show more content…
One example to depict Los Angeles as a frontier town is how “Other sidewalk booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of hot doughnuts and coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil stock and real estate in some highly speculative suburb” (29). This shows the developmental activity in Los Angeles due to the real estate, the oil stock, and the wild-cat mining shares. Many people come to Los Angeles hoping to become rich and strike gold. Los Angeles is a frontier town that has a plethora of oil. In Adamic’s “Laughing in the Jungle,” he characterizes some of LA’s citizens as seeing “a tremendous opportunity to enrich themselves beyond anything they could have hoped for ten or even five years ago, and they mean to make the most of it” (52). This characterization of LA’s citizens is another way of Adamic depicting LA as a frontier town due to the exploitative activity that he describes. Another example of how Adamic portrays LA as a frontier town is because “Los Angeles is America. A jungle. Los Angeles grew up, suddenly, planlessly, under the stimuli of the adventurous spirit of millions of people and the profit motive” (54). Adamic clearly depicts the exploitative activity associated with LA as a frontier town. Another author who illustrates the exploitative activity to establish LA as a frontier town is Upton Sinclair. In
In stories such as “The Cloak of Anarchy”, and “Footfall”(with Jerry Pournelle), he adeptly uses his writing skill and imagination to allow you to see into another place; he also shows no trepidation in including societal situations and political opinions which are even more thought provoking. The story begins with a description of the setting, which is a futuristic California . To be precise the San Diego, and Los Angeles areas. Long known for its expansive freeways, and exorbitant smog and pollution. The area is transformed to lush greenery: “Square in the middle of ...
Solnit, Rebecca. "Spectators." Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Hidden Wars of the American West. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1994. 228-47. Print.
According to the thesis of Fredrick Jackson Turner, the frontier changed America. Americans, from the earliest settlement, were always on the frontier, for they were always expanding to the west. It was Manifest Destiny; spreading American culture westward was so apparent and so powerful that it couldn’t be stopped. Turner’s Frontier Theory says that this continuous exposure to the frontier has shaped the American character. The frontier made the American settlers revert back to the primitive, stripping them from their European culture. They then created something brand new; it’s what we know today as the American character. Turner argues that we, as a culture, are a product of the frontier. The uniquely American personality includes such traits as individualism, futuristic, democratic, aggressiveness, inquisitiveness, materialistic, expedite, pragmatic, and optimistic. And perhaps what exemplifies this American personality the most is the story of the Donner Party.
The American West was the land of opportunity for many groups of people from 1865 to 1890. For farmers and ranchers, the American west was a land of opportunity due to low cost of land as a result of the Homestead Act and the a chance for Americans, including immigrants and blacks, to achieve the American dream and make a profit by growing crops such as cotton for the thriving textile industry and raising cattle for the upcoming cattle industry. For the miners, the American West was seen as an opportunity to get rich through the gold and silver rush and was even popular in other parts of the world where immigrants responded to the rush as well; although most were not successful. The America West offered opportunities for Americans, both rich and poor, to establish a new life and achieve economic independence.
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
...Thesis in 1893, the process of the Frontier is still a predominant force in American culture. The Frontier Thesis is less about settling the West than it is about Americans adapting to their environment in order to capitalize on resources. Because of this, the new Frontier lies in cyberspace. In cyberspace, Americans are changing their skills and personality traits in order to capitalize and utilize available resources for personal benefit. This process not only defined how the Frontier became civilized, but it also explained the development of the characteristics of the ideal American. In a response to their savage environment, settlers developed certain characteristics that are distinctly American. Because of this, the process of the West can be seen as a social evolution which helped to advance traits that are uniquely American – even in contemporary America.
In his book, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, author John Rollin Ridge introduces readers to a fictional character, who is a larger-than-life bandit. According to the story, Murieta set out on a path of revenge and organized a large band of outlaws to terrorize Californians. Murieta and his men committed terrible and bloody crimes (including robbery and murder). This pattern of criminal behavior continued until the band was pursued by mountain rangers, ending the story in a dramatic climax for the protagonist. However, this story is not an accurate depiction of the important elements of the “New” West according to author Patricia Nelson Limerick, in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. Instead, the character Murieta exemplifies many of the myths of the American West and the idea of innocence.
Los Angeles is a city that resonates with glamour and opportunity. Its attraction as the place to live in is everlasting. It attracts immigrants such as from China, Korea, and Mexico. In fact, according to one of the authors of the assigned readings, Ray Bradbury, Little Tokyo in Los Angeles is the “largest Japanese community outside Japan.” Los Angeles offers the dream of what most people yearn for. Another author from the readings, Wanda Coleman expresses her amazement with Los Angeles in her excerpt “L.A. Love Cry” (1996). She uses the simile of fast food to describe the lovely city, “Loving you is to love fast food.” (21) Coleman seems really to enjoy living in Los Angeles as she continues, “to eat with one hand while maneuvering steering wheel with the other, working that arm rest” (21). Los Angeles does not only offer the good life and multiculturalism, but it is also the city of hope.
FRONTIER -The frontier played a major role in the devolvement of the American law enforcement system. The heavily wooded area became home to outlaws and bandits, only the bravest settlers would attempt to police the frontier 139. Importance- The brave settlers refused to let the outlaws effect their lives, so they risked their own in order to get rid of the outlaws. In today’s society the brave settlers are known as police officers.
To many families the prospect of owning land was the central driving force that brought them to the land known today as the wild Wild West. Much propaganda wa...
The cowboys of the frontier have long captured the imagination of the American public. Americans, faced with the reality of an increasingly industrialized society, love the image of a man living out in the wilderness fending for himself against the dangers of the unknown. By the end of the 19th century there were few renegade Indians left in the country and the vast expanse of open land to the west of the Mississippi was rapidly filling with settlers.
The western frontier is full of many experiences that changed the frontier. Each significant event has an important role on the shaping of society and way it influenced a new nation. Each author brought a new perspective and thought process to the western experience which either contradicted Turner or supported his theories. The frontier ideas that interested me include topics such as trading frontier, farming frontier, nationality and government, and the neglecting of women.
In the interior, the desire to control house herds - a critical resource in California was the reason for American trappers, horse thieves, Mexican soldiers and rancheros congregate. Sutter’s connection to an Indian woman (p. 39)
In “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexie creates a story that captures the common stereotypes of Native Americans. For instance, in the story the narrator states, “Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and fireworks salespeople?” (Alexie). This quotation shows that the narrator addresses the idea that all Native Americans must own businesses that sell fireworks and/ or cigarettes in order to be successful. In this example, Victor is shown to not identify with the Native Americans because he does not pursue the same job opportunities as many Native Americans do. Victor's character is used as a contrast to the stereotypes that , there he represents reality. Another instance in which the author incorporates a stereotype about Native Americans is when Thomas-Builds-the-Fire first makes conversation with Victor. Thomas-Builds-the-Fire informs Victor about the news of Victor's ...
The Wild West is known for its cowboys and gunslingers. In the Wild West the pistol