The Frontier in the North

The Frontier in the North

To be honest, Frederick Jackson Turner’s text was not very entertaining to read because of its style. Written as a report it gives us detailed information chiefly about the westward movement of the settlers who faced different problems, but also the significance of this movement. So, Turner’s text is strongly historical. To be exact, it is a historical report describing the situation. Not a “gripping read” if somebody is not excessively interested in history.

Richard Rodriguez’ text is the complete opposite. Written like an anecdote, it gives us detailed a description of his personal experience. His essay is written in a very personal and narrative tone. Not very interesting, if you are not interested in what Rodriguez has to say, as this narrative is taken simply from the point of view of a single person.

It was only discussion about the texts which made them really interesting:

In this seminar, my interest for the American national feeling was roused, just because I got to know the origins of today’s American nationalism which is debated so much in recent times. What I found central in those texts was the term “frontier” or the delimitation from savagery or something minor.

Suddenly I found these texts so interesting, particularly their comparison with each other, because they were so opposite, beginning with their styles, the background or the origins of their authors, their treatment of their “frontier lines” (note the plural: frontier lines, if there really is a frontier in the north), just to name a few of their differences.

These reasons made it necessary and so interesting for me just to debate “The Frontier in the North”.

In my 5 page critical essay I will initially give a brief definition or rather explanation of the term „ frontier“ and also show its delimitation from the commoner term “border” or the other entries in the dictionary having vaguely the same meaning. But I anticipate, there is no better alternative expression for it. In the “Langenscheidt Englisch-Deutsch Wörterbuch” all the entries corresponding to the term “frontier” have something to do with “Grenze”.

In brackets it is written (zum Wilden Westen).

In our context, as we read Turner and then Rodriguez, shouldn’t it also be “(zum Netteren Norden, in dem die Zukunft liegt)” in brackets?

The basic difference between a border and the frontier is that the latter is moving. Additionally, borders have no undefined edges or even contentious regions (if they are not changed by war), on the contrary the frontier is something dynamic, it never rests, never stays where it was the day before. Frontiers are defined by movement. In a historical sense it also means progress. “Frontier” is strongly related with the development of the United States of America. That’s why “frontier” is a very positive term, standing for the birth of today’s strongest nation in the world. “Frontier” stands for progress.

Turner himself sees the frontier and particularly its movement westward as something exceptionally good, and bringing desolate lands into the modern world.

He possesses the typical point of view of a frontiersman. He uses terms as the “continually advancing frontier line”, he describes the other side of the frontier as being primitive, even as filled with savagery.

The frontier itself he sees as the meeting point between savagery and civilisation. So, the frontier lives, because of its steady movement.

But what is more, it even has a nationality, like a real person, who is living and moving. When arriving at the Atlantic coast of the new continent it was French, English, German and Spanish; in sum: it was European.

The more westward it moved the more American it became. It does not stand under European influence any more, it moves westward and in the west it is “the wilderness which masters the colonists” and unifies them, just to cite Turner.

Additionally the frontiersmen become more and more American whatever they were before. In their struggle for life they depend on each other, they are not French, English or German any more, they fight under the same flag- they fight for their America.

Turner uses so many dichotomies in his report, stressing his frontiersman’s point of view. He uses opposite terms like savagery/ civilization, nature/ man, challenge/ response, primitivity/ society and last but not least and possibly most importantly, West/East.