Willa Sibert Cather and His Works
Willa Sibert Cather was an early twentieth century writer. She wrote about the qualities of courage, sensitivity, and perseverance. Most often, her novels and short stories took place in rural townships. She was born sometime in 1873, in her grandmother's house. She was named after an Aunt Willela who had died; however, she chose to believe that her name was derived from her grandparent's names. She was the first child of Charles Fectigue and Mary
Cather. Willa was the oldest of the seven children.
In 1877, Willa and her family moved out of Virginia to Nebraska. The
Cather family had been living in Virginia for four generations. When she was nine, her father bought a ranch near Red Cloud, Nebraska. Willa was excited with this change, because she was free to roam outdoors. Willa would often listen to old ladies, and hear of their immigration from Bosnia and Sweden.
There were no schools near the ranch, so Willa studied at home. A neighbor taught her Latin, and Willa would practice English skills by reading the classics to her grandmother. When Willa was in her teens, the family moved out of the ranch and into the village, where she attended Red Cloud High School.
She attended the University of Nebraska, and graduated in 1895. As a student she worked as a journalist, copy editor, critic, and fiction writer. When she graduated, she moved back east to Pennsylvania. It was here where she worked on a Pittsburgh newspaper named The Library. She also taught English in a high school. Willa published "The Dance at Chevalier's," and four other short stories under a pen name of Henry Nicklemann. Another major publication for her was in April 1900, when "Eric Hermannson's Soul," was published in Cosmopolitan magazines. In 1903, The April Twilights, a collection of poems was published.
In the Spring of 1905, publisher's Melbourne and Phillips brought out the Troll
Garden, a collection of short stories.
Willa then took time off from her writing. She took a month off to go home and visit her family in Nebraska. In 1907, Willa Cather sent Sara Jewett a letter that contained a story. This story would later appear in the April issue of Harper's. The story was entitled, "The Treasure of Car Island." It was a story of a man who comes home after an absence of 12 years, and the emotions and feelings he deals with upon returning home. Willa also continued to publish stories in McClure's magazine. In 1908 she became the magazine's managing editor. However, she resigned in 1912, because editing left her little free
Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop: A Narrative Though many reviewers of Willa Cather's, Death Comes to the Archbishop, had difficulty classifying the book, Cather herself preferred to call it a narrative rather than a novel. I tend to agree with Cather. One definition from Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "narrative" as "a story", which is then defined as, "the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious". A novel on the other hand is defined as having, "a more or less complex plot or pattern of events." Where most books tend to follow certain guidelines as to plot, Cather chooses to take a different route.
The first few days were the men getting ready to leave the miserable situation they were in the past, but this was not without complications. The men first had to find e...
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
In their lifetimes, many people experience the loss of loved ones and the departure of children. One of the most difficult things to do is to keep strong and good relations with friends and family members, before it is too late. The short story “David Comes Home”, by Ernest Buckler, follows Joseph, who worries his son David never had the same connection to the land as he does, though memories of past experiences, finding old belongings, and discovering the boy’s true feelings, resolve this conflict.
Alexandra Bergman’s lack of self awareness allows others to forget that she is a woman and, at times, even human, which continuously builds the wall of isolation that surrounds her. As a result, when she reacts to situations as a woman would, rather than as “she” should, those around her don’t know what to make of it. Because she has been such a steady influence for so many years, those around her do not understand that perhaps she did have another dream besides working the land that she seems to care so deeply about. Her brothers in particular are unable to comprehend that Alexandra is a woman and was forced into the life she has lead by their father’s fantasy rather than by her own free will. Perhaps the only people who truly understand her dilemma are Ivar and Carl. Ivar is a “natural man” and a religious mystic and Carl a man who was unable to make a living from the land– neither is respected by their peers, and yet they have some sort of insight to Alexandra’s heart that even she has failed to acknowledge. Alexandra’s walls are brought down only by love: love of her youngest brother, love of the land, and the return of the childhood love she thought was lost to her– as these loves begin to change her, her outlook on her entire life begins to change and meld into something that only those who actually know who and what she is recognize: a woman.
The American college dictionary defines success as 1. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors, 2. The gaining of wealth, possessions, or the like. This has been the general seances for the past hundred years or more. But in more modern days the prospective of success has changed slightly. It has shifted to having a good education, going to collage, getting a carrier getting married & having children. Having your own home and eventually dying and passing it all on to a child or children. Success is no longer satisfaction or personal goals. It has been supplemented by the goals society has preset for the populous that have been drilled into the minds of the young from the very beginning. To a man named Santiago in The Old Man and The Sea by: Earnest Hemingway, success was to conquer the Marlin Santiago had fought for so long. But as a cruel twist of fate his success is taken away in an instant when the prize he had fought so hard for was eaten by sharks, leaving Santiago with no spoils left to show for his hard fight. He was even so crushed by of the loss of the Marlin that he cried out to the sea "I am beaten.....hear stands a broken man" (234). Santiago still experienced success in the fashion that when he returned to port the little boy named Manolin that he had taught how to fish earlier in the novel was allowed to come back to fish with him. This was the ultimate form of success that was perceived for Santiago by Hemingway. To Jean Valjean in Les Misreables By: Victor Hugo , Valjean's success was represented in the form of going from convict to loving father of a daughter. The little girl named Cosette may not have been his true daughter, but after he had had dinner with a bishop that had seen the possibility of good in he started the transformation of his life. he met Cosettes mother and vowed to save her daughter from the place where she was being kept. The success Valjean experienced was what made his character the man that he was. But to Willa Cather in My
To discover an erotics of place in Willa Cather's A Lost Lady, takes little preparation. One begins by simply allowing Sweet Water marsh to seep into one's consciousness through Cather's exquisite prose. Two paragraphs from the middle of the novel beckon us to follow Neil Herbert, now 20 years old, into the marsh that lies on the Forrester property. This passage, rich in pastoral beauty, embraces the heart of the novel-appearing not only at the novel's center point but enfolding ideas central to the novel's theme:
Despite all the trouble that his parents put him through, he still had love for them both. His mother never came back for him and his siblings but he did not despite her regardless of her abandonment. He grew up on his own but still respected his parents and always wanted to keep in touch with them even if it never happened. He did not want to grow up in the same environment as them. He wanted a happy home but it never seemed to be granted to
Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case,” displays the conflict between conformity and individuality through the main character, Paul. On a number of occasions, Paul is forced to lie and steal to escape the conformists who wish to control him and stifle his unique imagination. However, his lying, stealing, and attempts to escape the conformists, only force Paul into isolation, depression, and feeling a sense of shame for his individuality. Throughout the story one might see Cather’s constant contrast of individuality versus conformity, as well as Paul’s lying and stealing. Cather seems to draw the conclusion that extreme individuals, much like Paul are simply misunderstood, and not offered the acceptance they desire from conformist society.
In the start of the short story we are presented to a guy named Mike who has been fired from his work and is coming home early to tell the news to his wife. We are told that he was working late and that it affected his relationship to his family that rarely sees him.
A novel should be something that is easy to define. One would expect the novel to have a plot, a central theme, a central character and a consistent style? The truth is that all of these things are important but not specifically necessary. Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop cannot be easily classified as a novel in normal terms. It lacks a central plot that carries the work from beginning to some sort of an ending. It does, however, contain central characters, themes, and a clearly consistent style, but the story that is told consists of small vignettes.
Greene, Bob. Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned From Vietnam . N.p.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1989.
The author of this story, Ernest Hemingway, was indirectly involved in war efforts in WW1. He was an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross in Italy, and he was hurt during duty. Later, he was sent to the hospital, where he became attracted to his nurse. When he was well enough to go back home, he wanted to marry her, but she refused him. (Henningfield 259). This may have sent him into a downwards spiraling depression that lead him to feel similar to Harold Krebs, the main character of our story, who seems to be suffering after a war. Unfortunately for him, this abrupt breaking-off of relations may have harmed Hemingway mentally. (Henningfield 259). This harm likely manifested itself
In “William Wilson”, Edgar Allan Poe teases his readers throughout the entirety of story with hints about its unexpectedly expected conclusion. Through figuratively-infused passages, Poe meticulously leads the reader to the front steps of the story’s ending without ever truly revealing the conclusion until the final sentences. Within those final sentences, the question of who the second William Wilson truly is, is answered, immediately transforming the story from a battle between two physical beings with both the same name and appearance into an internal battle staged within the mind of one man with conflicting desires. In order to create this dramatic and essential shift, Poe externalizes the protagonist’s internal struggle by blurring the
All wise people will tell us that we must never let the sadness of our past and the fear of our future ruin the happiness of our present. However, what happens when this idea becomes an illusion restraining us from actually living in the present? What happens when the only condition to our happiness is that our present returns in the past? The book A long way home, written by Saroo Brierley and its film adaptation, Lion, directed by Garth Davis illustrates the fight of a young man who tries to appreciate his present by reconnecting with his past. Indeed, both literary and visual works present Saroo’s incredible, once thought impossible quest to find his biological family in the indian village he left 25 years ago. Through both narratives, it