How do you think each of the following factors contributes to this text?
 

-the author/narrator's gender
-actual frontier conditions
-difference in political ethos between Revolutionary times of Boone and the age of Jackson
-change in literary conventions; replacement of language of the Enlightenment (reason, science, "elegance," "virtue," freedom, classical pastoral, golden age) by several new languages (of commerce and speculation; of domesticity; of magazine-writing, novels, and advice-books).

 Think about the voice in this text.  What is the speaker's attitude toward the people she describes? toward the people she is presumably addressing?  toward herself?  How does this attitude differ from  Boone's?

 There's not much room for the comic in Boone.  What is its place here?  What does Kirkland use it for?

 What does the reader learn from this text?

 What does this text value?

 How (if at all) does Kirkland use figurative language, anecdotes, and emblematic scenes?