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   litelle209 Teacher
   College - Freshman

   eNotes Editor

   This is a good question that brings Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier thesis to mind. Published in 1893 as a paper read at the Chicago World Fair, it argues that national character and the character of the people living in the United States is directly linked to its expansion westward. American identity is  by the settlement patterns that bring civilization into the wilderness. Later on, in The Significance of the Frontier in American History he also claimed that different ethnic groups have distinct settlement patterns that they follow.

   Structurally, the novel follows Turner's recurrence of evolution and stages of civilization on the frontier. Jim moves from the East to the Nebraska prairie, then to Black Hawk ( a smaller town) , then to Lincoln ( a larger city) , and finally to Harvard  University which symbolizes western civilization at its best.

    

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/my-antonia/aacute-ntonia-shimerda

   http://www.enotes.com/my-antonia/jim-burden

   http://www.enotes.com/salem-history/closing-frontier

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   Posted by litelle209 on Sunday June 7, 2009 at 5:03 PM