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Manifest Destiny Research Paper

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Kyle Matteson English 101 9-26-16 Essay 1 Draft Manifest Destiny; the great purpose of the United States. To push the reaches of civilization into the frontier and wilderness and bring it all to heel and under the “control” of civilization and the new country. Americans by the thousands flocked to the Midwest and the West Coast to make their fortune and try to carve out a life in these unbridled lands. They left all that they knew to go off into The Wilderness and bring it into subjugation of their will. But what exactly is The Wilderness and why is man so emphatic and intent of controlling it? Is The Wilderness really only a place outside the bounds of “civilization”? William Cronon describes The Wilderness as many Americans in his day …show more content…

What was it about them that required them to shape what they saw around them to their own image and idea of the world? It may have been that they were just trying to bring order to the world around them. It would certainly fall in line with the thought of the day, rebelling from chaos to create a structured, ordered world with everyone carving out a space for what they thought should be in it and making it real. They feel that they have to take the frontier, this wilderness, and create something which is naturally majestic and free, and restrain it. They have to control this thing which is outside of themselves and outside of their comfort …show more content…

Conquering fear also has the effect on people. They do not want to live in fear. They do not want to feel like there is something key to themselves which can overpower them at any second and turn them into something which is completely out of their control. It overwhelms them, making them do things which they would never do, whether that be jump off a cliff into a river to save their lives. Fear is a wild thing inside of all of us which is untamed. It is our most primal instinct and is able to drive us to actions we do not think through. It turns us into wild, thoughtless, responsive creatures. Creatures which survive well in the

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