Feminism In Willa Cather's 'O Pioneers !'

In this essay I will discuss and analyze the social forces that influenced American women writers of the period of 1865 to 1912. I will describe the specific roles female authors played in this period and explain how the perspectives of female authors differed from their male contemporaries.

Everyone can agree that sexism had its talons deep in the flesh of the American mindset during the 1800's and although this is an obvious fact, few people understand just how hostile an environment it was for a woman. Among those few, were the women living in this malicious medium. From corsets to kitchens, housekeeping to health, life was not easy for even the most well-to-do woman. Although not all women decried their situation, a strong-minded minority dropped their oven mits, put their fists in the air, and called out for a change. Equal opportunity, equal right to vote, equal pay, and all around equality is what they demanded. But feminism was not only found at suffrage rallys or Grange meetings, it made its way in to every medium,

O Pioneers by Willa Cather sets itself apart from other novels of its time because of what its stands for, feminism. It exemplifies women’s equality, represented by the main character, Alexandra, by showing her survival in a male dominated society. She succeeded in building her female identity and achieved a sense of female attainment by revolutionizing the wild land and struggling for her equal rights with all that surrounded her. This paper focuses on the feminist thoughts and the positive attitude of the image of the strong character Alexandra, who was independent, brave, and optimistic. A spirit like hers, of strength and courage, insisted that she would never be defeated by man or nature.

      Willa Cather's novel My Ántonia dramatizes the effect the frontier has on both native-born people and immigrants that come to the West in search of new beginnings. The story centers around two families living in a remote area of Nebraska from completely diverse backgrounds. This tale suggests that regardless of where a person comes from, the trials and tribulations of living under such tough conditions will ultimately impact his/her future existence. Cather's characters, no matter the age or heritage, are continuously re-defined, as if reborn, into a new life by surviving the harsh realities of the frontier. Much of the creation of these characters takes place in the very

In the 21st century, many women, myself included, take for granted that we can wear whatever we desire and say what we want, in public, without the fear of being thrown in jail. However, that was not always the case. While the fight for the continued advance of women’s rights rages on, women of the 19th century lived a very different life than the one, us women, lead today. The feminist agenda was just emerging on the horizon. One particular woman was preparing to do her part to further the cause of women’s rights: Sarah Willis Parker. Parker was better known by her pen name, Fanny Fern. After facing and overcoming extreme adversity, she made the decision to start writing. To understand how truly ground breaking Fanny Fern was, we need to understand that in a 1997 edition of an anthology of American satire from colonial times to present, Fern was the only woman writer from the 19th century in that text. Her satiric style and controversial subject matter was just what the oppressed needed to gain some support and give them a voice.

Many things influence a person’s overall perception and opinions about the world around them, such as their education, geographic location of upbringing, or religious views. All of these factors, combined with countless others, shape each person into who they are and how they interact with society. The time period a person lives through is another exceptionally important contribution, as it is creates the entire backdrop of their experiences -- socially, economically, and politically. A psychoanalytical look at O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, explains how the social and cultural implications of Willa’s life are transferred to this piece of literature. I believe that Willa Cather created the primary, male characters in O Pioneers! based on the unfortunate experiences she had with men in her early adulthood, which caused these strongly biased characters, while the female characters are given exaggerated positive personality traits.

1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and

Beginning with Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills, readers can find within the text a clear oppression of lower class peoples that is also an indirect oppression of women as lower-class individuals. Davis tells this story with a man named Hugh Wolfe as her main

Willa Cather draws a stark contrast between the respectable women of Black Hawk and the “hired girls” in books II and III of My Antonia through Jim’s unavoidable attachment to them.  The “hired girls” are all immigrants who work in Black Hawk as servants to help support their families in the country.  They are hardworking and charming.  They are simple and complicated.  They are sad and joyful.  They work all day and dance all night.  For Jim they are the most interesting people who  reside in Black Hawk.  The respectable women are boring and predictable.  They all go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning.  Their

Throughout history, men and women experienced life changing situations that impacted their lives in many different ways. The roles of both genders in society show the narrow thread of their gender specific roles and social standards. The customs of masculinity and femininity in the eastern part of the U.S, contributed tremendously to the roles men and women played in the Overland Trial. However, the development of the west showed the orthodox practices of American cultural and the way in which many American identified themselves. The novel by Kenneth Holmes called “The covered wagon”, illustrates the lives of the women who traveled the west in covered wagons during the 19th century through their letters and diaries. Women like Tamsen Donner as well as Virginia Reed, members of the donner party. In addition, there are letters and diaries from a Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail and Rachel Fisher, who had to bury her husband and daughter before getting to Oregon. Through the text of Holmes, current historians are able to visualize the different places and details revolving around the trail, crafting scenarios that are both devastating and heart-warming to its audience. Holmes focused primarily in the roles of women in the expansion to the west and how the absence of women history shows the physical barrier crafted by gender roles.

The period between 1750 and 1850 marked some significant changes to the roles of women in America. For one thing, the success of the family farm depended on both husband and wife working nearly around the clock in the fields. One can imagine that working side by side with her husband must have sparked some ideas or aspirations of equality in a woman’s mind. At the same

Men where the decision makers. Women’s whole lives were set up to marry a man and be controlled by them, I soon came to find that the men ruled everything they did. They controlled where they went, what they wore, even if they got divorced if the man didn't want her to see her kids she couldn't, in the 1850s the industrial revolution changed women's lives they had more freedom and got their own money, but this little freedom they got, had some consequences. Berengera was one example of the women who left their families to get their own jobs and make their own money, she was just a young Canadian girl who came down with her sister from their family farm in lowell Massachusetts to working the textile mill. When she was there she met a man and had an affair. They decided to split up, she went to Manchester mass and he went to Biddeford and Saco area. She soon found out that she was pregnant, so she decided to follow her boyfriend and tell him. After she told her boyfriend, he said he didn’t want to marry her and set up an illegal abortion. Berengera she knew if she didn't see the doctor she'd be a disappointment to her family so she went to Saco to see Dr James Harvey Smith but during the operation something happened leading her to die. The doctor panicked and decided to strap her on a board and put her in the brooks to lead to the ocean, but his plan got screwed up and the board got stuck in a brook and a young boy found her and once it got out, she got her name Mary

   In her novel, My Antonia, Cather represents the frontier as a new nation. Blanche Gelfant notes that Cather "creat[ed] images of strong and resourceful women upon whom the fate of a new country depended" . This responsibility, along with the "economic productivity" Gilbert and Gubar cite (173), reinforces the sense that women hold a different place in this frontier community than they would in the more settled areas of America.

Throughout time, the role of women in society has slowly undergone changes. Now so more than ever do females have more freedoms socially, economically, and politically compared to the past. Before, women were expected to act demure and subservient to their husbands, while also taking responsibility of the domesticity of the family. These unspoken rules restricted women from seeking out opportunities away from the home, but it didn’t stop them all. For example, Willa Cather, an illustrious author of the early 1900’s who followed the beat of her own drum, rather than the whims of others. Her success as a writer is a testimony to this strong spirit and her works reflect it dubiously. Her novel “ My Antonia” in particular is full of strong female

Literature changes as current events change and as the structure of society begins to shift. American feminist literature started to become prevalent during the Victorian era, or around the latter part of the 19th century. This is the time when the first wave of feminism in the United States hit. The Seneca Falls Convention - the first women’s rights convention - and the emergence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s American Equal Rights Association in the middle of the 19th century are among some of the noteable events that sparked this movement in literature. Women across America were inspired by the changing of the times, and that is reflected in many American female authors’ writings.