"Back in July my colleague Freddie Turner came out here from Harvard and gave a speech before a bunch of anthro people who were all in town for their convention and of course the Fair. To the effect that the Western frontier we all thought we knew from song and story was no longer on the map but gone, absorbed—a dead duck."
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"My colleague Freddie Turner came out here from Harvard"
No he didn't, Professor. In 1893, Turner was a history professor at the University of Wisconsin. He didn't begin teaching at Harvard until 1910. Pynchon is a historical genius so I'm going to assume it's Heino Vanderjuice who was confused about this.
"gave a speech before a bunch of anthro people"
That speech was "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" and I hope that somewhere in the previous entries across the first 938 lines, I've mentioned my frontier theory. This is the first that I've heard of Frederick Jackson Turner and his "frontier theory" which, although sharing many of the same qualities as my theory, differs in one major way. I'll get to that. But first, Jackson's theory!
Turner's essay begins by expressly stating that the frontier was over, gone, absorbed, a dead duck, as Heino Vanderjuice explains so succinctly. But up until the 1880s, Turner argues the frontier was the most definitive catalyst in developing the character of the American people. He viewed westward expansion as being driven by a need to dominate nature, to expand power, and to seek a place of freedom from the states (or State). That was the drive that led people westward but he believed the struggle to survive and to prosper honed a distinctive American character.
This theory is important to Pynchon's themes because it is very much an imperialist and colonial view, one that ignores the people already on the land (other than as "challenges" to be overcome by the pioneers), embracing Manifest Destiny as not only a view that the land was meant for immigrant Europeans but that it was also a place which helped develop all the characteristics Americans like to see themselves as possessing: individualistic, capable, hard working, inventive, stalwart.
This speech was given at the Chicago World's Fair which Pynchon has gone to great lengths to describe as an event which centered white people on the stage of the world. Turner's view of the frontier was just another example.
While Turner believed that the expansion of the frontier was something which created positive traits in the pioneers and developed the strong characteristics of American individualism, my theory of the frontier is a bit more cynical, a bit more postmodern. Turner paints westward expansion as a need, a drive...in fact a choice made by the pioneers. He believes that the hardships created the characteristics of the people who blazed those trails. But I believe those characteristics were already in those people. There's a reason you leave civilization behind you and move westward to "escape the State." It's because either you can't get along with the status quo or the status quo doesn't want you anymore. The people who went westward were people fleeing; they were people who either didn't want to fight for their individuality and humanity anymore, or were too tired to continue. Even Turner paints a picture of the West versus the East, where the West is freedom and the East is old rules and beliefs. That's why people moved west: escape. All of my favorite novels tell the metaphor of westward expansion, of fleeing from the status quo to be free to be yourself: Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Ancient Child (in its way!), The Grapes of Wrath. Americans like to think of their Colonial (and Imperialistic!) ancestors as fighters but there's a reason they fled Britain. And then many kept fleeing West as the East Coast became more and more established and rigid. The West Coast was founded by anti-establishment weirdos who didn't hone their characteristics trying to survive; they brought those characteristics with them. It is those characteristics that practically forced them to leave civilization behind.
My theory also ignores the Native Americans and imperialist actions by the Europeans but that's because my theory is less about history and more about literature. Also, it's really just based on one day realizing that all of my favorite books were pretty much about a character who runs away rather than battling the powers that be. Fuck the powers that be!
"the Western frontier we all thought we knew from song and story was no longer on the map but gone, absorbed—a dead duck."
Turner concluded his essay by pointing out that the end of the frontier was the end of the first great period in American history. This speaks to the idea that Pynchon has chosen this time in American history because it is a liminal period: America is leaving the wild frontier behind and is beginning to tame it with light and electricity.
The Census Bureau, in 1890, actually declared the end of the frontier after seeing that the west had become sufficiently densely populated to all but erase any line of a frontier. Officially, westward expansion was over. People now had nowhere to escape which meant, whether they wanted to or not, they were now going to have to fight for what they believed. Definitely a new era in America.
