Willa Cather’s O Pioneers presents the land as symbolic and vital to the course of the plot. As a force of nature so powerful that it can crush the efforts of any settler in a fleeting moment. This display of supremacy presents itself in the opening lines of Cather's novel, in which she introduces the land as not only the setting but an active character within the story. When Cather’s states, “One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away,” she incarnates the spirit of the settlers within the land. As the novel progresses, the idea that one must be a force equal in strength to the land is apparent in the protagonist character of Alexandra Bergson. O Pioneers brings the works of Fredrick Jackson Turner and Solomon Butcher to life, through Alexandra and her affection for the land, Cather, gives a voice and a human persona to the expanding frontier, showcasing the lands innate ability to shape its own destiny. In O Pioneers, Alexandra symbolizes the spirit of an entire pioneering generation, and em...
In this book, Kupperman is telling a well-known event in remarkable detail. She intentionally uses last three chapters of the nine to tell the Jamestown’s history. The first six are in relation to how Jamestown came to be. The first chapter deals with political, national and religious conflicts during this period and how it motivated the English to venture West. The second is titled,” Adventurers, Opportunities, and Improvisation.” The highlight of this chapter is the story of John Smith, and how his precious experience enabled him to save ”the Jamestown colony from certain ruin.” (51) He is just an example of the “many whose first experiences along these lines were Africa or the eastern Mediterranean later turned their acquired skills to American ventures.” (43) Chapter three discusses the European and Native American interaction before and during this period. “North America’s people had had extensive and intimate experience of Europeans long before colonies was thought of, and through this experience they had come to understand much about the different kind of people across the sea.” (73) This exchange of information happened because a lot of Europeans lived among the Natives (not as colonist or settlers), and Natives were brought back to Europe. The people in Europe were very fascinated with these new people and their culture. Chapter four analyzes this fascination. It starts off talking about Thomas Trevilian, an author of “an elaborate commonplace book,” that showed “the English public was keenly interested in the world and in understanding how to categorize the knowledge about all the new things, people, and cultures of which specimens and descriptions were now available to them.
The book starts out with a chapter called “Over the Mountains”, which in my opinion for this chapter the author wanted the reader to understand what it was like to live on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. This is where he brings out one of the main characters in this book, which is Henry Brackenridge. Mr. Brackenridge is a cultivated man in Pittsburgh. He was wealthy and he was there to ratify the Constitution. He was a Realist. He was a college friend of James Madison at College of New Jersey. He was also in George Washington’s post as a chaplain for the Revolutionary War. He believed that Indians needed to be assimilated into the American culture. “… ever to be converted into civilized ways, their legal rights were to be protected” (Hogeland 19). He will become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.
The Jump-Off Creek introduces the reader to the unforgiving Blue Mountains and the harsh pioneer lifestyle with the tale of Lydia Sanderson, a widow who moves west from Pennsylvania to take up residence in a rundown homestead. She and other characters battle nature, finances, and even each other on occasion in a fight for survival in the harsh Oregon wilderness. Although the story is vividly expressed through the use of precise detail and 1800s slang, it failed to give me a reason to care because the characters are depicted as emotionally inhibited.
Smith’s and Bradford’s individual descriptions are simply two categories; fiction and nonfiction. Smith’s intention for his audience is that the new land is everything you can wish for without a single fight. Smith starts by describing the content and pleasure that risking your life for getting your own piece of land brings to people. He is luring his audience in by telling that it is a wonderful world of vast food and gratification. Smith wants his audience to be more of the joyful individuals who look for the good in everyt...
This quotation cuts straight to the heart of Willa Cather's whole argument throughout O Pioneers!, which is that it is Alexandra Bergson's will to survive and continually adapt which makes her successful -the facts that her neighbours are unwilling to take up new ideas and technologies, they are unwilling to gamble, and, worse, unwilling to listen to those whose relationship with the landscape is harmonious and respectful (such as that of Ivar), mark them down as part of the legacy of ignorant, unadventurous past. Alexandra is not content with a position such as Ivar's, though; she does not seek to subsume herself into nature, but to respectfully co-exist with it until she can in a greater development tame it. Whereas Ivar merely wishes to leave no mark, she has more controversial ideas. It is this which marks her out as something special; she was born with the fiery imagination of the true pioneer, born to prosper in "the struggle in which [she] was destined to succeed while so many men broke their hearts and died" (page 46). If she is so destined to succeed, she must similary be destined to make her mark on society of the time, on its established traditions, and sweep them aside in order for a brighter world vision to take their place.
Cather, Willa. O Pioneers!. Eds. Susan J. Rosowski, Charles Mignon, and Kathleen Danker. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1992.
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford gives us an insight into the endurance of the early settlers and the kind of pain they went through in order build the foundation of our great nation. They embarked on the new world and developed a colony from the ground up. However, there troubles started long before they even stepped foot on the land. With a strong hold on their religious beliefs, they continued their voyage to the new world even though there were questions about the safety of the vessel. They managed to work hard on the ship and make it to the new world, tired and hungry, only to learn that there was no rest to be found, but even more work.
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
All in all, the treatment of the American Indian during the expansion westward was cruel and harsh. Thus, A Century of Dishonor conveys the truth about the frontier more so than the frontier thesis. Additionally, the common beliefs about the old west are founded in lies and deception. The despair that comes with knowing that people will continue to believe in these false ideas is epitomized by Terrell’s statement, “Perhaps nothing will ever penetrate the haze of puerile romance with which writers unfaithful to their profession and to themselves have surrounded the westerner who made a living in the saddle” (Terrell 182).
I rose from the sweet sands and soon the warmth of the land’s impression had lost its heat (Of Plymouth Plantation, page 8). We have been building houses and freezing and had sacrificed ourselves to labor’s tiresome definition (Of Plymouth Plantation, page 9). Now, labor’s meaning has washed to a numbing survival amongst everyone in our settlement. However, we have settled on these soils comfortably enough to call it home. A few months into the settlement lived a temporary famine and devilish plague that kept some civilians dropping like flies (Of Plymouth Plantation, page
Before I started this research paper, all I knew about Andy Warhol was that he was the leader of the pop art movement. Reading his book and many biographies written about him, I have learned that Warhol is a truly complex character. I found out during my research that Warhol is a hoarder. Warhol himself has admitted that he had a problem with throwing anything away. In his book, he addressed that he wanted a clean empty space, but his mind wouldn’t let him. This new perspective of Warhol allowed me to tie his artwork as a reflection of his mind. I think Andy Warhol as exactly what he was, an artist in New York City. I cannot imagine Warhol outside of the NYC scene because Warhol was very provocative for the time period he lived in and NYC is perfect for people like
In "Good Country People," Flannery O'Connor skillfully presents a story from a third-person point of view, in which the protagonist, Joy-Hulga, believes that she is not one of those good country people. Joy is an intelligent and educated but emotionally troubled young woman, struggling to live in a farm environment deep in the countryside of the southeast United States, where she feels that she does not belong. Considering herself intellectually superior to the story's other characters, she experiences an epiphany that may lead her to reconsider her assumptions. Her experience marks a personal transition for her and constitutes the story's theme--the passage from naïveté to knowledge.
...ition, she presents the reader with the differing generations of the old and new south, and she illustrates the contrasting views between the two. O’Connor is not afraid to question Christian theology or the Southern culture. Her irony and satire add depth to ther stories, and her deep cultural analysis of the South brings a higher level to her writings. O’Connor also explores the concept of fallen human nature and how it is brought about. Overall, O’Connor’s works prove to be very in depth in both her social and cultural analysis of the South. She is not afraid to critique the society in which she grew up and lived.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
In a strange way, Victor Navorski’s long and obstacle packed journey relates closely to the journey many early settlers must have experienced. Just like Victor Navorski journey, the early