Wilderness shaping society.

One of the major themes De Crevecoeur conveys is how the land and nature helps shape humans and society. He points out repeatedly how important the land is in the growth of society, examining the human relationship with the land and how the wilderness of America and the unique land is what shapes American society.

Crevecoeur repeatedly compares human society with metaphors of plants and bees. In the sixth letter, Description of Martha's Vineyard, "Never was a bee-hive more faithfully employed in gathering wax, bee-bread, and honey, from all the neighbouring fields, than are the members of this society; everyone in the town follows some particular occupation with great diligence, but without that servility of labour which I am informed prevails in Europe". This idea shows how each society are like bees in the form of everyone having their own job to do to fit or help one another. This is seen in a slightly different form in modern American high school films where there is a 'Queen B' and everyone else is a different type of worker. The term 'Queen B' is now hugely recognised as the person in charge of a society, and even features in contemporary music, for example; Lorde - Royals, made famous in the US.

(Image: Blair from Gossip Girl)

"In Europe there are so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mold and refreshing showers: they withered and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished!"

And "Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow"'

Both quotes show how Crevecoeur used similies and metaphors of the wilderness to show how people act differently in America then they would in Europe. It conveys that once a man has travelled to America he will blossom and not have to worry about hunger or war.
Another contemporary example of the idea of wilderness and land shaping a society is Disney's Pocahontas. It is shown that at first the natives lives are going great and they are one with land, rivers and animals until the settlers tear everything down and start to ruin the landscape. Once that happened the natives society started to fall apart. This falls back to the idea that land and wilderness shape society and without it, there is no longer a put together society.