Earth Mothers and Femmes Fatales: Willa Cather's Women

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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 Cathers novels mirror theauthors broad experience with people from all strata of society (Hively 171).Consequently, Cathers characters come from diverse cultural and socialbackgrounds. It is today regarded as one of the authors 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 Cathers 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 Cathers 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 Cathers 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 Cathers 1913 novel O Pioneers!, Ántonia Shimerda (later Cuzak)and Lena Lingard from My Ántonia and Marian Forrester from A Lost Lady. Allof these characters live in rural Nebraska in or, in Marian Forresters 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. [...]

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