Summary Of The Novel 'O Pioneers !' By Willa Cather

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.

The setting of the story has tremendous impact on the characters and themes in the novel "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Cather's delicately crafted naturalistic style is evident not only in her colorfully detailed depictions of the Nebraska frontier, but also in her characters’ relationship with the land on which they live. The common naturalist theme of man being controlled by nature appears many times throughout the novel, particularly in the chapters containing the first winter.

It seems that everything in Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, aside from the land, starts out so full of life and ends so utterly devoid of it. It could even be said that the characters in the novel become imprisoned by their own lives. Marie is barred by her love, which, in the end, leaves her quite literally lifeless. Alexandra, who initially is so full of life, begins to view her life as unimportant and as a prison house. Even the spirituality of the pioneers is ever declining and dying away. Ultimately it is Frank who embodies the idea most obviously; in his youth Frank lives the life of a happy, handsome man, yet his life ends in utter despondence and literal imprisonment. How is it that all of

What if you sacrificed all your time and put your all into something and only came out with a bronze, third place trophy? This person simply is disappointed, despondent, and dissatisfied. I don’t think that is wrong at all. Willa Cather once said “The end is nothing; the road is all,” but I think it is the complete opposite. I think this quote means that no matter the outcome, the journey there is everything. The end is everything because it involves expectation, interpretation, and dedication.

The novel Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick has a long list of things to teach us about the New World. The fact that it’s showed us that the very first pilgrims had no idea what they were in for was crucial. They were hit with the realization that the Natives would be wild and ferocious instead of calm and tame. They’d known they would be introduced to new ways of life, and disease, but they didn’t suspect that it’d be the most destructive part to the goodwill of the newly born colony.

Almost everyone has heard the quote, “you can’t understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes” at least once in their life. It means that a person should not judge another person before considering their perspective on something. For the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich, that quote is an important theme for its main characters. The novel gives a glimpse into the lives of Native Americans in 20th century America through the narrative of two characters: Nanapush and Pauline Puyat. The stories of the two alternate through every chapter, with each character narrating their own side of the same continuous timeline. The first narrator is Nanapush, a wise elder of the Ojibwe tribe, whose wisdom is a useful tool for the tribe’s people. The

Exploration has always been a central theme in the development of the United States. The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, made the government more eager to expand west. The newly acquired lands were in need of exploration. A team needed to be established to survey and document the new territory. The Lewis and Clark expedition would answer the unknown questions of the west. The expedition would not have been successful without the leadership, determination, discipline of the Corps of Discovery, and the cooperation of the Native Americans. President Jefferson wanted the leader to have the same passion and intensity toward the discovery of the west as he possessed. Jefferson hand-

In the novel Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick, the author educates us on how the New World was discovered and created. It all started with a group of roughly 100 men and women who originated from England known as the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were sick and tired of the lack of religious freedom and work/economic opportunities. There was no future for the Pilgrims in England. This was all until the group set sail on the Mayflower in order to find new land. After a rough journey, they came across a piece of land now known as New England. The Pilgrims settled here because it was relatively empty. They believed that in New England they would be able to create a godly city or a place where they wouldn’t be criticized for their religious views.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, written by Annie Dillard, is a novel based on the writers

Willa Cather’s My Antonia and Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain are two literary works that effectively recreate the landscape of the stories they are telling. Their writing styles have a few similar characteristics, such as their word choice and their usage of visual elements; however, they take advantage of various writing elements that make their writing styles distinct, such as the use of figurative language, emotion, and rhetorical questioning.

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.

In the first sentence, Cather establishes a sense of symbolism when the narrator states "...the little town of Hanover...was trying not to be blown away" (1). Cather is personifying the prairie's existence to help paint a picture of both the beauty and the difficulty of pioneer life. Much of the opening section of the novel focuses itself to a description, and more importantly, to a characterization of the land, setting personified forces and individuals into conflict with each other.

In the novel O Pioneers! the author Willa Cather?s vision of Alexandra Bergson is consistent in character treatment with other authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter), and Stephan Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets). In each novel, all authors possess a central character that has an obvious tension between themselves and their community. Unlike the previous authors, Cather?s sympathies lie toward Alexandra. She makes Alexandra seem artificial because she has given a woman (also being her main character) strength and courage, along with power to overcome those who wish to pull her down.

In A Wagner Matinee, Willa Cather utilizes realism in order to display the consequences of living for someone else. Realism particularly focuses on representing middle-class life from the Civil War in the 1860’s to the turn of the century. The story’s settings portray a middle-class life wrought with hardship, regret, and grief. Local realism is weaved throughout the story to emphasize the consequences of not staying true to one’s dreams. Cather draws upon Clark and his aunt Georgiana’s lives as a contrast of life choices.

In order to clarify and justify Behn's intentions, it is important to first review and relate the events and characters of The Widow Ranter in comparison to those of the English Civil War. The primary characters of interest are Bacon, the Jamestown Counsel, and the Indians/ Indian