Nina Dietrich

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1.0 (A), University of Kent (School of English), course: American Modernism: Fiction, language: English, abstract: According to Evelyn Helmick Hively, Willa Cather's novels mirror theauthor s broad experience with people from all strata of society (Hively 171). Consequently, Cather s characters come from diverse cultural and socialbackgrounds. It is today regarded as one of the author s primary literaryachievements that her novels reveal a different West and [offer] an alternative direction forAmerican literature. They spoke for the Midwestern immigrant and thewoman, who had hitherto been silent, and they spoke in the language of anold culture taking root in a new land. (Thomas 64)In fact, although Willa Cather s female characters live on the margins ofAmerican society, they are strong-willed and in control of their destinies. Catherillustrates that even in the male-dominated, restrictive turn-of-the-century society,women have a large number of choices and can shape their lives in ways that theirpredecessors could not. Harvey remarks tha t gender proves an asset in theirefforts to achieve self- fulfilment, helping them turn inward to explore self in away that [male characters] never could (Harvey 33). Willa Cather s heroinesconstruct their own identities to varying degrees, taking advantage of theopportunities for personal improvement available in frontier and post- frontierAmerica, often manipulating the established image of womanhood andchallenging traditional views. Even though all of Cather s heroines are subject to similar socialexpectations and pressures, their lives differ to a great extent. Cather shows thatthere is more than one way in which the pioneer woman can seek self- fulfilment. In order to illustrate this, the essay will analyse four heroines, that is, AlexandraBergson from Cather s 1913 novel O Pioneers!, Antonia Shimerda (later Cuzak)and Lena Lingard from My Antonia and Marian Forrester from A Lost Lady. Allof these characters live in rural Nebraska in or, in Marian Forrester s case, at theend of the pioneer era. Harvey states that at that time, awoman was supposed to fill a variety of roles, all primarily for the purposeof helping a man achieve his American Dream. [...]