O Pioneers By Willa Cather Analysis

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.

Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.

“Cather’s…protagonist[s] are particularly fascinating when studying the early twentieth century because it was a time in American history when both males and females questioned their identity roles. Traditional roles

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

In the short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates and the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley unique gender/sexual roles and disobedient actions portray through the main characters’ to defy the cultural status quo. Irony, juxtapositions, and foreshadowing are being used in each piece of literature to help the reader comprehend and compare what the author is saying about the characters and their motives now and in the near future. Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” can compare to Bernard and John in Brave New World, because all are ignoring the rules, whether it is society for Bernard and John or her friends’ parents for Connie. Each character wants to be with the opposite sex and experience life, even if they are being told otherwise. The authors each make these protagonist main characters appealing to the reader because we feel as if we can connect to them and perceive their desire to oppose what the rules are and how they want to be divergent from what their controlling forces are telling them to do, whether it is parents or society.

During the nineteenth and twentieth century there was a number of changes made in America. Woman were looked at as less than back then and to a certain degree they still are today. There was a number of women that died or went insane because of the standards that they had to meet in order to be considered good women. In this research paper I will talk about the experience of the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper and Blanche DuBois from the story A Streetcar Named Desire. It will be shown within these pages how the moral and societal standards for women were far different than they were for men, and how the standards changed over the years. Furthermore it will be shown how this effected the women of those two stories.

In the short story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates and the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley unique gender/sexual roles and disobedient actions portray through the main characters’ to defy the cultural status quo. Irony, juxtapositions, and foreshadowing are being used in each piece of literature to help the reader comprehend and compare what the author is saying about the characters and their motives now and in the near future. Connie in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, can compare to Bernard and John in Brave New World, because all are ignoring the rules, whether it is society for Bernard and John, but her friends’ parents for Connie. Each character wants to be with the opposite sex and experience life, even if they are being told otherwise. The authors each make these protagonist characters appealing to the reader because we feel as if we can connect to them and perceive their desire to oppose what the rules are and how they want to be divergent from what their controlling forces are telling them to do, whether it is parents or society.

Nelle was known as a “Tomboy”.(famousauthors) Her friend, eventual author Truman Capote, was bullied and Nelle would protect him.(famousauthors) Their friendship was strengthened by the fact that neither of them had great home lives.(famousauthors) Nelle’s father was a lawyer, co-owned the city newspaper, and was rarely home.(famousauthors) Her mother was believed to be bipolar and needed special treatment.(famousauthors) As a result her mother rarely let the house.(famousauthors) These hiccups did not stop Nelle from making it through school.(My Name Is Scout) In high school she developed a love for

Society is ever changing and evolving, the interactions between family members and those in a person’s community can change from day to day. Shirley Jackson and Ernest Hemingway explore society and the interaction of people within a society to show the true nature of people. The authors both use short yet intense diction which places the reader within the story. The twists within the plot lines of both essays show the reader life is always unexpected and that although one may believe they know the conclusion they are blindsided by the truth. The two writers have very similar approaches throughout the story hiding the true reasoning behind the story until the finale, yet the way the compose their essays and the way in which societies within those essays act, both writers display how

Willa Cather’s, book O Pioneers represents a completely different way of life than traditional life is the early 1900’s . Traditionally, a man’s main job consists of hard labor and a woman’s job involves having children and focusing on home life. Although this happens to be the “norm” of the time, charcters in O Pioneers do quite the opposite. Carl Linstrum, a male character in the novel, does not come across as your “typical” 1900’s man. Another bold character, Alexandra Bergson, defies the social stereotype widely accepted at the time of O Pioneers. She supports herself and does everything that people of her time period believes a man should do. Most relationships being male dominated, it’s obvious that a lot men don’t have respect for women during this time.

In her novel, O Pioneers!, Willa Cather suggests that the balance of passionate feelings and platonic dreams is an essential conflict of the human condition. Cather explores the importance of a balanced selfhood through the journey of the heroine, Alexandra Bergson, a dedicated pioneer living on the Nebraska prairie in the late nineteenth century. Although Alexandra initially feels fulfilled by her platonic dream of working the land to provide for her family, following the tragic death of her brother, she craves a human relationship with her friend, Carl. Alexandra’s deep appreciation and connection with the mythical Divide offers her a metaphysical and passionate relationship, whereas her long term platonic friendship with Carl offers human

The pioneers had it rough in their journey westward. They had three basic needs that they have to bring and know the order in which they need to find and get those things can be extremely difficult. These three needs are food/ water, the right clothing, and the knowledge of what order all the needs should go into.

1. Willa Cather seems to take issue with the bland and boring nature of realism above all else. She notes that realism is not in itself an artistic expression, yet so many art forms from literature to paintings—particularly from her time period—portray little more than the realism of our world. In her mind, the literalness that is realism can be successfully integrated in art, but it must be done in a specific way for it to qualify as true art. The literalism needs to fuse with the emotions and experiences of the characters and simply remain as a simple component of the artistic experience rather than the entire focus. The novelists and other artists of her time that she mentions and feels have placed too much focus on realism in their work are not real artists in her mind. Overall it seems that Cather believed that the growing prominence of realism within art forms in her time was leading to their downfall and their loss of true artistic expression. As she stated within “The Novel Démeublé,”If the novel is a form of imaginative art, it cannot be at the same time a vivid and brilliant form of journalism” (par. 7). Through this quote, she is essentially getting her aforementioned message across by comparing realism in art to mere journalism—the mere relaying of facts and realities without a shred of creativity or imagination

O Pioneers by Willa Cather is a different novel from those of its time. It is a novel that stands for women equality represented by the main character Alexandra. O Pioneers reveals a story about Alexandra’s struggle against nature and being a strong woman in a male dominated profession and society. She succeeded in establishing her female identity and achieved a sense of female self-fulfillment by transforming the wild land and struggling for her equal rights with men. This paper focuses on the feminist thoughts and pioneering spirit of the great image of the heroine Alexandra, who was independent, brave, and optimistic. Getting strength and courage from her such spirit, Alexandra would never be defeated by either men or nature.

In A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather I believe that she was trying to portray herself as Mrs. Forrester who is also an outsider like Cather. Willa Cather was in a place that she did believe she belonged. Cather settled in Webster County Nebraska and she hated it (willacather.org). When she first moved to this state, she did not enjoy being there one bit. In the book A Lost Lady, she states in the first sentence, “Thirty or forty years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer today than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for certain charm of atmosphere.” She is telling us how grey and dull the town was. She didn’t appreciate the empty fields or empty endless roads of Nebraska. However, the longer she lived there, the more she grew to like it more.