O Pioneers

O Pioneers

After reading the novel, O Pioneers!, it was

hard to judge whether it was a tragedy or a

triumph. I think the answer you are looking for

would be a triumph. The only way I see it as a

tragedy is that Emil and Maria died. I knew, since

page six of the book, that they were destined to be

together. It kind of broke my heart to see later

on that she had married someone else. But when her

and Emil got shot, I thought it may finish as a

tragedy. But overall, I would see it as a triumph

in the way that the Bergson's finally got what they

wanted out of their land. It made them rich.

Also, Alexandra and Carl finally married. And

being that the whole novel was basically based on

"the land", they were triumphant in getting what

they risked, what they longed for.

In my opinion, I think the land broke the

characters rather than the characters breaking the

land. Of course the characters had to plant and

sew the fields, but they did that every year. It

took the forever, it seemed like, for the land to

break them. That's what the Bergson's had worked

for their whole life. The land pulls the family

together and makes them work hard to get what they

want,...money, happiness. It makes them happy. So

yes, the land does break them more than they break

the land.

In considering Cather's characters, I don't

think they become fully Americanized within a

generation. At the beginning of the novel, it

seems like they are more in tuned with the rest of

America. They are economically stable. But when

Carl comes back on his first visit, Lou and Oscar

scorn him about burning Wall Street. Obviously,

America is building and becoming more advanced.

While still in Nebraska, people are relying on

their crops to get them by. They are still

dwelling on their traits, beliefs, and actions that

past generations had.

Romantic love in this particular novel is very

hard to judge whether it is necessary for human

happiness. I don't think that it was meant to be

the moral of the story, or that love was the basis