Pioneers set off heading towards the west to escape the challenges they faced in the east. They had an idea of what the west held for them, but none really understood. Newspaper and explorers portrayed the west with endless possibilities. Thousands of men, women and children took a trip heading west to look for a place that held their future. Once there they realized that there was a lot of work in order for them to succeed. The west changed and shaped the people. The hardships made tough and worn humans. In order to survive they had to give up what they knew and the customs that defined them. Clothing, food, and the weather changed. Men worked all day on the farm. Women worked all day taking care of the children. Children did all the chores their parents couldn’t. Work was their life and it formed them into people that were unrecognizable. The evolved to survive and had to make sacrifices, but this doesn’t make them bad people. Within the story A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather, it portrayed three things about Nebraska and Boston: living conditions, out of place, and isolated.
People in the two different places have different living condition as shown in Matinee. Culture in different states and towns are never exactly the same. There will always be similarities, but because of the environment there are changes. Minerals in the water in the U.S. are different the minerals in water that exists in Africa. In order to survive when you move to a new place there is a period of time where you have to adapt to the new water. Sometimes, your body change because of your surroundings. If you live in a place the survives on carbohydrates and then move to place that has a lot of protein your body will thin because carbohydrates adds fat a...
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...ation they risk a change in living conditions, being out of place in their hometown and being isolated. When Clark’s Aunt moved to Nebraska, she gave up some of the things she loved. Music became a minimal part in her life and she grew isolated. When hearing a symphony again, her soul was awakened to the wonder of music and she didn’t want to leave. Her soul fit in Boston, but her appearance did not. She stood our because of the years spent in the country. Her living conditions had shaped he into something Boston wasn’t used to. She was a good person, but no longer fit in. When we make changes in our lives we have to remember that we can’t lose what we love during the process. In order to be happy we have to strive to bring what we love into the place we live.
Works Cited
Cather, Willa A Wagner Matinee how the Aunt had changed while she lived in Nebraska
The West is a very big part of American culture, and while the myth of the West is much more enticing than the reality of the west, it is no doubt a very big part of America. We’re constantly growing up playing games surrounded by the West such as cowboys and Indians and we’re watching movies that depict the cowboy to be a romanticized hero who constantly saves dames in saloons and rides off into the sunset. However, the characters of the West weren’t the only things that helped the development of America; many inventions were a part of the development of the West and helped it flourish into a thriving community. Barbed wire, the McCormick reaper and railroads—for example—were a large part of the development in the West—from helping to define claimed land boundaries, agricultural development and competition, and even growth of the West.
The Changeable nature of life affects us all somehow. Whether it be moving to a new city, having children, or losing people that we love, it can affect people in many different ways. For example, in the novel, the main character Taylor Greer changes her name from Marietta and moves...
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
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.
Going through the same thing every day can be comforting and change can create chaos in the everyday routine. After the youth leaves change will set in but will change the outcomes of the activities that occur. Some parents will enjoy the free time that has been presented and others will fade and not know what to do. Older generation parents have readjusted before and have had to change their life to incorporate the youth coming into their life; some transitions were easier than others. Some of the parents find that moving out of their community is not the way to change the pace of life that is occurring. Yet the change of moving would create a drastic change of pace; some of the parents in Ellis tell Carr and Kefalas, “They fear that the outside world will expect them to change too much of who and what they are” (21). Making a change would require something that most parents don’t have, and that would be wanting to leave. Most of the older generation are content with the life they have; yet the ability of having a change of pace is enticing.
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on were still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly begun. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives. The lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century were greatly affected by the technological development and government actions.
...to Americans: if their prospects in the East were poor, then they could perhaps start over in the West as a farmer, rancher, or even miner. The frontier was also romanticized not only for its various opportunities but also for its greatly diverse landscape, seen in the work of different art schools, like the “Rocky Mountain School” and Hudson River School, and the literature of the Transcendentalists or those celebrating the cowboy. However, for all of this economic possibility and artistic growth, there was political turmoil that arose with the question of slavery in the West as seen with the Compromise of 1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Act. As Frederick Jackson Turner wrote in his paper “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” to the American Historical Association, “the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.”
Patricia Nelson Limerick describes the frontier as being a place of where racial tension predominately exists. In her essay, “The Frontier as a Place of Ethnic and Religion Conflict,” Limerick says that the frontier wasn’t the place where everyone got to escape from their problems from previous locations before; instead she suggested that it was the place in which we all met. The frontier gave many the opportunities to find a better life from all over the world. But because this chance for a new life attracted millions of people from different countries across the seas, the United States experienced an influx of immigrants. Since the east was already preoccupied by settlers, the west was available to new settlement and that was where many people went. Once in the western frontier, it was no longer just about blacks and whites. Racial tension rose and many different races and ethnic groups soon experienced discrimination and violence based on their race, and beliefs instead of a since of freedom at the western frontier.
The West: From Lewis and Clark and Wounded Knee: The Turbulent Story of the Settling of Frontier America.
As a result, their lives changed, for better or for worse. They were inexperienced, and therefore made many mistakes, which made their life in Chicago very worrisome. However, their ideology and strong belief in determination and hard work kept them alive. In a land swarming with predators, this family of delicate prey found their place and made the best of it, despite the fact that America, a somewhat disarranged and hazardous jungle, was not the wholesome promise-land they had predicted it to be.
...family that she grew up in was such a negative environment. It is very possible that she will grow up to be an art teacher. One might think this because she looked up to her art teacher so much and admired her; Ellen’s mind is full of creativity and ideas. When Ellen’s school found out that her dad was abusive to her they put her up at her art teacher’s house. Ellen says “I came a long way to get here but when you think about it really hard you will see that old Starletta came even farther… And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe” Like Ellen did, it is important for everyone to look back into their life and see what they have learned. Doing so cannot change ones past but only add to their future. Ellen will always carry the horrors of her childhood with her but by using all of her assets that she gained throughout the book her future can be enriched.
...allowed to reach her American Dream without being frowned upon by others. Materialism, and the fears of judgment, are restrictions for these characters that keep them from reaching their true happiness and American Dreams.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
Some found it difficult to disconnect form this existing life, but once they had survived one their own for a while they learned to appreciate what they were given the opportunity to do. In A Woman in the Westward Movement, the hardships that come with moving westward are spelled out. It discusses how difficult it was to travel west and all of the obstacles they faced just to get to their destination. Once they arrived, even though they did not want to go back where they came from, they had “the want of society, of church privileges, and in fact almost every thing that makes life desirable, would often make me sad in spite of all effort to the contrary.” They recognized that life was noticeably different without the attachment to a society. Moving west allowed the roles in society to disappear. Women who moved west were forced to break away from their natural place in the family and take on a new role as someone who worked hard to build a new life. “but I am satisfied that with all the disadvantages of raising a family in a new country, there is a consolation in knowing that our children are prepared to brave the ills of life.” This showed that even though moving west had a lot of difficulties tied to it, in the end a lot of people benefitted from being disconnected from society. Henry David Thoreau disconnected with society because
Upon leaving Boston, the young man’s status and attitude change drastically. He becomes a captive of Crow Indians who treat him badly. He becomes property of a “...scrawny, shrieking, eternally busy old woman with ragged graying hair..” He must gain her trust to earn more freedom around the camp and such. During this time he was “...finding out what loneliness could be.”