“I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the surroundings of my study.” (Wagner, 654) When the United States is mentioned, there are a few places that immediately come to mind, places like Florida, Nevada, New York and California. There are a lot of places in the middle that often times tend to get left out, though the truth is that these places are the most important. Places like Nebraska and Wyoming are crucial pieces of the nation. Though these places are not necessarily the most popular, they are perhaps the most important. These states are like the common workers of the world, taking on tasks that no one else was willing to. These states are some of the most crucial pieces of the United States simply because they are full of people willing to do the work that all of the other far more glamorous states are not. This is something expertly depicted within Willa Cather’s text A Wagner Matinee, where Cather perfectly depicts just how much internal strength it takes to lead one of these lives. A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather shows the everyday struggle of individuals living all over the Midwestern area of the United States.
Cather’s text clearly depicts the physical strains of daily life in Nebraska as opposed to life within more populated parts of the world. A Wagner Matinee gives just a small insight into the working life on a Nebraskan farm. Most individuals in the most popular parts of the world do not understand precisely how difficult it is to live a life that consists completely of physical labor. As the narrator describes what he remembers of his life on the form, he very distinctly recalls the physical pain he felt from working. “I became in short...
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...have been like some hundred years ago. It is rare now to find someone that is willing to put forth the work necessary to actually get anything productive done, when not long ago people spend every moment of every day working with their bare hands in an attempt to make a living for themselves as well as their families. Willa Cather is one of the few individuals that actually comprehends what it means to work, and how important said work is when it is your only source of income is the crop that does not yield anything helpful without human intervention. To someone that lives out in a place like Nebraska, the inner city can seem incredibly tempting. The lights and noise and comfort of the city are something that the settlers in Nebraska would give anything for. In the case of Georgiana, even a taste of this lifestyle is enough to push you into wanting to stay forever.
This historical document, The Frontier as a Place of Conquest and Conflict, focuses on the 19th Century in which a large portion of society faced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Its author, Patricia N. Limerick, describes the differences seen between the group of Anglo Americans and the minority groups of Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics Americans and African Americans. It is noted that through this document, Limerick exposes us to the laws and restrictions imposed in addition to the men and women who endured and fought against the oppression in many different ways. Overall, the author, Limerick, exposes the readers to the effects that the growth and over flow of people from the Eastern on to the Western states
coming in search of gold and everlasting youth, there has been a mystique about the land to which Amerigo Vespucci gave his name. To the Puritans who settled its northeast, it was to be the site of their “city upon a hill” (Winthrop 2). They gave their home the name New England, to signify their hope for a new beginning. Generations of immigrants followed, each a dreamer bringing his own hopes and aspirations to the green shores. The quest was given a name – the American Dream; and through the ages, it has been as much a symbol of America as the lady in the harbor, a promise of America’s riches for all who dare to dream and strive to fulfill their ambitions. Dreamers apotheosized fellow dreamers like Rockefeller and Carnegie, holding them to be the paradigm from which all could follow. But behind the meretricious dream lies the cold reality. A country built upon survival of the fittest has no sympathy for those who serve as the steppingstones for others’ success. For every person who reaches the zenith, there are countless others trapped in the valleys of despair by their heedless dash to reach the top. Playwrights Arthur Miller and Lorraine Hansberry memorialize the failures in their works Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun. Their central dreamers, Miller’s Willy Loman and Hansberry’s Walter Lee Younger, like children at a candy shop window, are seduced by that success which can be seen so clearly, yet is so unreachable. Ardent followers of the hype of America, they reveal that, far from being a positive motivator, the Ame...
Willa Cather was greatly influenced by America’s wild natural scenes. In her first 20 years, she grew up near a small city in Nebraska called Red Cloud. This city was surrounded by prairies and stood at the border of America’s wild frontier of the west and the progress and modernization from the east.
No one every thinks about how we got here. About what our ancestors had to go through and how the chances that we would actually ne here get slimmer and slimmer the more that you think about it. All those people that are in your family tree have helped to shape who you are and the person that you will become. Our family seems to determine who we are going to be in life and always seems to find a way to get us there. In the story A Wagner Matinee there is a man, Clark, who lives in Boston who receives word from his Aunt Georgiana who is coming to visit from Nebraska to settle an estate. When his aunt, Georgiana, had been younger she had been a very talented music teacher and she had been the one you introduced him to Shakespeare, the music that she played on her small parlor organ, and classic mythology. When she left she had to give up music and that is one thing that she despised. “It never really dies, then the soul? It withers to the outward eye only.” Georgiana then met a man and they proceeded to move out to Nebraska and he lost contact with her. One day he received word that she was coming back and Clark decided to take her out to a concert because she had not been around music in so long and she forgot how much she loved music. In the story A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather, you realize the hardship that a lot of people went though while on the frontier and then how people in Boston lived a more promising life.
Natasha Trethewey, a poet from Mississippi, has a complex understanding of America, that were informed by her experiences in the South as a biracial woman. She primarily writes about experiences she had and also those of her parents and others before her that are connected to specific locations that have profound meaning to her. Within her writing she not only expresses her connection with and love for Mississippi, but also her contradicting disdain for its history. Trethewey demonstrates that how race is viewed culturally is impacted by history and it’s telling of it. The history of America for the black American is dark and painful and she recognizes its ongoing effects.
The Midwest: land of TV news anchors, housewives, and dreary, never-ending fields. In her memoir “The Horizontal World”, Debra Marquart uses interesting rhetorical techniques to detail this vast, distinctly uninteresting plain. By using unusual figurative language, outside examples to solidify her points, and a geometric extended metaphor, she paints a picture of perhaps the most boring place on Earth.
The tone of the short story “America and I” changed dramatically over the course of the narrative. The author, Anzia Yezierska, started the story with a hopeful and anxious tone. She was so enthusiastic about arriving in America and finding her dream. Yezierska felt her “heart and soul pregnant with the unlived lives of generations clamouring for expression.” Her dream was to be free from the monotonous work for living that she experienced back in her homeland. As a first step, she started to work for an “Americanized” family. She was well welcomed by the family she was working for. They provided the shelter Yezierska need. She has her own bed and provided her with three meals a day, but after a month of working, she didn’t receive the wage she was so
The reading this week dealt with minorities in America and America’s contradictory nature. It began stories of various Indian tribes who lost their land to the English settlers. The Choctaw and Cherokee Indians who were forced away from their homes towards barren stony mountains. Then Takaki switched his focal point to slavery and its significance within America’s past. Then, the sixth chapter ends with Irish emigration.
In Debra's Marquarts memoir she expresses her love and experiences of what it is like growing up in the upper Midwest. She starts of with characterizing the upper Midwest as boring because that is what her audience assumes, due to the fact that they may not be familiar with the region. Marquart effectively uses visual imagery and formal diction to persuade her audience that the Midwest is Special and unique.
Imagine going down south to the Promised Land (California), getting a new job that pays very and well. Finally have enough food on the table for the entire family in order for them to survive and not die of starvation. The ideal American Dream for all the migrants who are hardly surviving the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. John Steinbeck’s ultimate goal by writing this phenomenal, very controversial and outrageous novel was to bring the reader back in time in order for them to experience the life of the migrants suffering during the great Depression but also to criticize all the high authorities—most particularly in the farming industry—who have mistreated the migrants and given them false hopes. Steinbeck’s clever use of a raw but yet interesting vocabulary, the fresh and original narration, the portrayal of the characters in the novel and the pacing (fluency) of the story itself and grasps the reader’s attention.
In "The Gift Outright," Robert Frost traces the development of American culture from colonial times to a more present perspective. He tells the American story of colonialism, freedom, westward expansion, and the quest to develop a specifically American culture. In doing this, he focuses on explaining ways in which Americans supported the growth and development of their country and culture. Frost suggests that Americans showed their allegiance to their developing country and culture in several ways: battlefield bravery, commitment of talents to the good of the country, and dedication to expanding the United States' land and power. His reflection on the past is also a call for action in the future. He acknowledges that American culture is still not fully developed and the continued dedication of Americans, like occurred in the past, is required for the United States to recognize her full potential.
The story of “Life in the Iron Mills” enters around Hugh Wolfe, a mill hand whose difference from his faceless, machine-like colleagues is established even before Hugh himself makes an appearance. The main narrative begins, not with Hugh, but with his cousin Deborah; the third-person point of view allows the reader to see Deborah in an apparently objective light as she stumbles tiredly home from work in the cotton mills at eleven at night. The description of this woman reveals that she does not drink as her fellow cotton pickers do, and conjectures that “perhaps the weak, flaccid wretch had some stimulant in her pale life to keep her up, some love or hope, it might be, or urgent need” (5). Deborah is described as “flaccid,” a word that connotes both limpness and impotence, suggesting that she is not only worn out, but also powerless to change her situation; meanwhile, her life is “pale” and without the vivid moments we all desire. Yet even this “wretch” has something to sti...
America is a land filled with strong nationalism; however, there was once a time where one living in America could not say that he was an American. The colonists in the New World did have nationalism, but it was for a land across the sea. In Robert Frost’s poem “The Gift Outright”, there is set forth a stanza concerning the history of America and how this nation came to be. Through his use of personification and other stylistic choices, Frost efficiently communicates and explores the forming of a nation and, thus, the creation of nationalism.
In Willa Cather’s short story, “A Wagner Matinee”, Cather uses a sense of regret, along with the setting and the music from the concert hall, to bring a sense of sadness to the story and to Aunt Georgiana. Aunt Georgiana was a music teacher who loved her career but gave it up to marry a farmer. She recognized her mistakes and moves on to regret marrying the farmer. As Aunt Georgiana continues to live with Mr. Clark, she cannot help but think about how she wanted to live her own life without anyone controlling her. Cather uses a sense of regret to make the reader feel sorry for Aunt Georgiana.
The author shows the readers that a stable life is to work. Everyone must work to earn money and so there he has based it on ranch workers who work in hot and stuffy conditions. The working conditions can be so difficult that many have dreamed of having their own land and building upon a dreamed that many fail to achieve.