Abstract: Turner claims in The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) that the frontier, as “an area of free land,” erases the distinctions of classes and social status and creates individualistic heroes and the unique national character of America, thus establishing the foundation of the history of Old West and turning the frontier into a land of fantasy for Americans. Half a century later, Smith renders the frontier as a myth and a symbol in his Virgin Land. Since its emergence in the early 1980s, the New Western History has constantly challenged the myth of the West and tried to disclose the truth of racialism and violent conquer during the Westward Expansion. In a way that echoes with the call from the New Western History, McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, which draws on the myth of the frontier and the mode of the Western novel, tells a story of a young man who travels southward to Mexico but fails to accomplish his individual freedom or his cowboy dream. The protagonist Cole is not an individualistic hero on the free land, but an alienated single puppet in a strange world. All the Pretty Horses is not just a border novel. By shifting both the temporal and spatial boundaries, McCarthy challenges Turner's ideas about “free land” and self-determination for the purpose of further deconstructing the myth of the frontier and urging the reader to face the present, reflect on the past, and look into the future.

Key words: McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, Turner, “Frontier Thesis”, the myth of the frontier