The Uncharted Space
Through the Lewis & Clark journey, you will catch a glimpse of the American way to cross new frontiers. As many said, this expedition was an equivalent in its days of a journey to the moon.
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Places and forms of Power
- In this document, we can see the power represented by the president of the United States. He can decide to send an entire expedition to discover an unknown land.
- The amount of information they will gather represents a great knowledge. This knowledge can be considered as a form of power, the power of instruction. We can say that one is stronger with better knowledge.
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The idea of Progress
- The principal idea of this expedition was to find a water route that would cross the entire american continent. This would allow the Americans to trade easily with orient. It represents a progress because the idea was to improve commercial communication.
- There is another form of progress in this expedition: knowledge. The idea was to be better informed after the expedition and to confront the prejudices with reality.
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Myths and Heroes
- The first myth tackled here is the myth of the frontier. Indeed, The USA have built their nation with the idea of always pushing the western frontier. When the western expansion finally reached the western coast, other types of frontiers emerged. Americans had to find new challenges to replace that need for something unknown.
- There is also the initiatory trip (Voyage initiatique). People who will come back from this journey will be different because they will learn more about themselves than about anything else.
- The people who will embark on this extraordinary journey are considered heroes because they represent their country and what they are about to do is so challenging that only heroes can do it.
- Sacagawea, a squaw, who was part of the expedition became a very famous hero in America. She is represented on the 1$ coin.
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Space and Exchange
- The people embarking on this journey were about to discover a new territory that no American had ever seen before. So, it was the discovery of an uncharted space.
- They were constantly exchanging with Indian tribes all along they journey.