O Pioneers By Willa Cather Analysis

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.

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.

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.

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

The character Aunt Alexandra reminds me of a close friend, my mom had a while back. She raised three boys who grew up to do nothing with their lives. When the lady would babysit me on the weekends she would make me do housework, for her. I questioned her, asking why her boys couldn’t do it, her response was that they were boys and that because I was a girl I was expected to take on the job of taking care of the house. Everytime I read a section where Aunt Alexandra was present it made me feel bad, Aunt Alexandra was forcing Scout dress in formal clothing rather than letting her express her individuality because it would be viewed as unlady like.

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.

Flannery O’Connor was a southern belle born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925. She was a Catholic girl living in the Bible belt of the country. She lived in “two different worlds” (Meyer, 421); the fictional world that she created for her stories and her personal life. In her stories, she used exciting characters so that she could live through them and live an “interesting” life. She uses her stories to portray totally unanticipated, but totally plausible things. “O’Connor’s stories present complex experiences that cannot be tidily summarized; it takes the entire story to suggest the meanings” (Meyer, 426). She uses her characters to show irony, private experiences, fears, and diverse parallels into her story “Good Country People”.

The family farm despite the absent economic power of a male character leads the Hopewell women to assume all the open roles while simultaneously maintaining their femininity (Smith 36); they must assume a dual task by acting male in public but privately preserving their womanhood. These gender roles, however, cannot be fully explained without looking at the relationship between mother and daughter; despite their common sex, their relationship is seen as a disturbing force where mother and daughter are at often at odds with each other.

O Pioneers!(1993) by Willa Cather begins on a blustery winter day, in the town of Hanover, Nebraska, sometime between 1883 and 1890. The narrator introduces four main character: the very young Emil Bergson; his older sister, Alexandra; her friend Carl Linstrum; and a little girl, Marie Shabata. Alexandra's father, John Bergson, is dying. He tells his two oldest sons, Lou and Oscar, that he is leaving the farmland, and all of what he has accomplished, to their sister.

Zooey blames his hopelessness of humanity on his brothers. His spiritual enlightenment didn't make him a moral person, other than it made him the opposite. The problem with religion is that it cannot make people moral. Religious rules, practices, rituals, and discipline meant to guide a person achieve a moral state of being ends up becoming arduous and unbearable which leads to frustrations and back to decadent behaviors. Religion as a belief practice is meant to morally guide, however the religious practices a person must undertake to achieve that place of spirituality becomes impossible because of the human nature and the desire to sin. Therefore, religion is not the solution to moral behaviors. Both Franny and Zooey failed at trying to live

Contrary to some of her characters Kate was not an independent woman. She was only twenty years old when she got married, and in a period of seven years she had six children. In her early years Kate was always known as a "bright student and a great story teller", but her writing years did not came until the 1880's. (Wyatt) Kate had a hard life, and it is assumable that she wrote about her personal frustrations. Through her characters, Kate represented the idealisms of feminism.

Louisa Alcott’s novel Little Women is posed during the Civil War. There are four girls: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They live with their mother while their father is away fighting in the war. Little Women displays many themes. However, feminism is one of the important themes displayed. During the Civil War, women were expected to get married, and while Jo portrays feminism, she gets married in the end of the novel. This aspect demonstrates that even though someone wants to change the way something is, it cannot be completely changed because of society’s ideals. In Alcott’s novel Little Women, the author uses Jo to demonstrate femininity through the use of dialogue, imagery, and behavior.

Parallel to many of the great feministic novels throughout literary history, Jane Eyre is a story about the quest for authentic love. However, Jane Eyre is unique and separate from other romantic pieces, in that it is also about a woman searching for a sense of self-worth through achieving a degree of independence. Orphaned and dismissed at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle that was characterized by a form of oppressive servitude of which she had no autonomy. She was busy spending much of her adolescent years locked in chains, both imaginary and real, as well as catering to the needs of her peers. Jane was never being able to enjoy the pleasures and joys that an ordinary and independent child values. Jane struggles

The short story “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck tells the story of Elisa Allen, a woman living with her husband in the Salinas Valley. Elisa is unsatisfied with her role as a rancher’s wife and would like to gain more independence and importance, yet she lives in a time when women were generally not as independent as men. The singular effect of entrapment is present throughout aspects of Elisa’s life from her personal identity, to her relationship with her husband, to her interactions with the pot mender. When the travelling pot mender arrives and speaks of his lifestyle, Elisa’s desire to see and do more in life is stirred. In the end he discards Elisa’s importance, which leaves her feeling dejected. Ultimately, she becomes defeated in her pursuit for a more meaningful existence. In “The Chrysanthemums,” author John Steinbeck represents the theme of gender inequality through the development of Elisa’s primary dilemma of a lack of purpose and importance in a society that did not see men and women as equals.