O Pioneers notes PDF

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Summary

In-depth analysis of Willa Cather's O Pioneers
Comparisons to other pieces in the course...

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O Pioneers! Writing style:  Slow like the day-to-day life in frontier life  Large passes of time in between, because it is mainly just routine over the years Theme of Love  Passionate love: o Quick, strong, but burns out o Ex: Marie and Frank  Reasonable love: o Alexandra and Carl o Mutual respect o Lasts over time and distance  Variety of emotions Theme of Proper Work Ethic  Understanding the land  Alexandra  Failure to understand the land  Lou and Oliver  It was their livelihood  Work ethic is important, but it is not necessarily physical love Dreams:  Emil dreaming of Marie for 2 years straight o Letters from Mexico  Mother is dreaming of the homeland o Re-creating what she longs for  Emil and his career  Dream of changing  Carl’s dream of striking gold  Alexandra’s dream at the end o Companionship o Point of moving to the Great Plains

Background:  Published in 1913  Willa Sibert Cather o 1873-1947 o Moved to Nebraska at age 10 Descriptive style  “Gray” in the beginning o The prairie, the sky, and the kitten o Repetitive  Personification of the land o “It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces” - page 8 o “With a soft, deep sigh of happiness” - page 29 o “The land did it. It had its little joke. It pretended to be poor because nobody knew how to work it right; and then, all at once, it worked itself. It woke up out of its sleep and stretched itself…” - page 45 Different Forms of Comfort   

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Mrs. Bergson on page 11 o Habit, routine, and re-creating her “old life among new surroundings” Mr. Bergson o Leaving something for his children Ivar o Being far from people and near animals o Bible and prayer → “He had a peculiar religion of his own” - page 14 o “Ivar found contentment in the solitude he has sought out for himself” - page 15 Alexandra o Her house to display her accomplishments o Discomfort in loneliness Emil o Thinking about Marie

Theme: The American Dream    

Struggle with debt and mortgages True for immigrants at the time Success and prosperity through hard work Legacy o John Bergson counting cattle and what he was leaving behind for his children o John’s father “died disgraced, leaving his children nothing” -page 9

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o Carl’s rant about living in the city on page 47  “I’ve enjoyed a great many things, but I’ve got nothing to show for it all”  “We leave nothing behind us” “People always think the bread of another country is better than their own” - page 25 o “The grass is always greener” o Lou and Oscar wanting to move down to the river

Underlying Theme of Non-conformity    

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Alexandra’s resistance to moving to the river “The right thing is usually just what everybody don’t do” - page 27 Carl on page 47: “Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing.” Treatment of Ivar by the rest of the town o “But here, if a man is different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum” - page 36 o Similarity to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” Treatment of Alexandra when she is 40 and considers marrying Carl

Theme of Gender 

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Role reversal between father and daughter o “We’ve always depended so on father that I don’t see how we can go ahead” Alexandra on page 6 o “As she grew older he had come to depend more and more upon her resourcefulness and good judgment.” - page 9, John’s perspective “He would much rather, of course, have seen this likeness in one of his sons, but it was not a question of choice.” - page 9 Fight between the siblings, pages 64-65 o Lou: “This is what comes of letting a woman meddle in business” & “It makes women conceited to meddle in business” o Oscar: “The property of a family really belongs to the men of the family, no matter about the title. If anything goes wrong, it’s the men that are held responsible.” This is a major source of insecurity in the brothers, knowing that their sister has been so successful on her own, without them, and they are trying to diminish that...