¶ … Old Western Frontier -- the Pervasiveness of the Western Frontier Hero in the American Imagination
The heroic American national character and the search for an ungoverned American frontier are fused in the America national imagination. America envisions itself as a wide-open place, rather than a contained place of tradition like Europe. America is seen in the natural cultural mythos as an area of limitless expansion. Thus, there are little consequences for the environment because of capitalism and industrialism, because national resources are never-ending. Resettlement of natives and immigrants is of little consequence, because there is so much land. And all restrictive laws regarding the use and abuse of land, people, and morality are seen impingements and infringements upon the ability of masculine commerce and the American spirit to realize their fullest potentials.
The frontier is also a place for and of men, where women are encroachers, never at home. The frontier is a place where men go to flee the control of women, not to seek the solace of women, unless the women are prostitutes, women who make their money from men, or who mimic men in their values, like the Calamity Janes and Annie Oakleys of the West. The West is a place where men colonize the environment with their capable if occasionally violent hands. However, even if the colonizing violence is occasionally terrible in its effects upon the American soil, it is deemed a necessary consequence of freedom, rather than something to be reigned in.
This is how the frontier can embody...
Joan Crawford's life appeared to mirror the characters that she portrayed on film in several ways. By analyzing the 1945 film Mildred Pierce, in which Crawford plays the titular character, one can see how Mildred's character is designed to reflect American perspectives of women. For example, in the film and in real life, Crawford was able to reinvent herself and become more successful as time went on. However, despite her successes,
Huckleberry Finn and What Makes an American What Makes Twain's Huckleberry Finn American? "Those canonic ideals -- self-government, equal opportunity, freedom of speech and association, a belief in progress, were first proclaimed during the era of the Revolution and the early republic and have developed more expansive meanings since then," these are the basic core ideals which make something truly American (Kazin & McCartin 1). The freedom to live as we want,
Hunt for Red October Few fictional texts are as redolent of the global Cold War as Tom Clancy's novel of east-west submarine intrigue and confrontation, The Hunt for Red October, first published in 1984. For those who have the benefit of hindsight it may appear that the mid-1980s was a period in which the Cold War was clearly coming to an end, but at the time the east-west confrontation was
... They were accustomed to living in the open, to enduring great fatigue and hardship, and to encountering all kinds of danger." The war against Spain and for the liberation of Cuba was one that would prove the superiority of America and its ideals. The United States, too, could join the nations of Europe as a major world power, with interests in every corner of the globe. Roosevelt became a hero
African-Americans and Western Expansion Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, very little was written about black participation in Western expansion from the colonial period to the 19th Century, much less about black and Native American cooperation against slavery. This history was not so much forbidden or censored as never written at all, or simply ignored when it was written. In reality, blacks participated in all facets of Western expansion, from the
Crazy Horse and the Western Hero Crazy Horse, believed born sometime in 1838, was a respected member of the Oglala Sioux Native American tribe and is noted for his courage in battle. He was recognized among his own people as a visionary leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life and leading his people into a war against the take-over of their lands by the
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