"O, Pioneers!," A Classic American Love Story

"O, Pioneers!" may seem like an outdated story of a time most people can't relate to; but it is in fact a classic American love story that still holds true today. It isn't a typical love story, of a man and a woman romantically falling in love, but of the American people falling in love with, well, America. Willa Cather illustrates to her readers the American frontier, casting the land as a main character in her dramatic novel spanning over twenty years. Most people are more connected to their cell phones and computers than they are to the trees outside their window, Cather personalizes the land in a way that could make any urban American want to visit her beloved Nebraska. She also discusses many gender issues that we still deliberate today. In these ways, Cather brings the old West into our homes, still relevant nearly a century later.
In Cather's work "O, Pioneers!," she writes about the land of Nebraska as one of the most complex characters. Her writing is simple, and easy to digest, making the West as accessible as an old friend. Although Cather didn't use many literary devices in her writing, the personification of the land itself helps the reader to wrap their head around this foreign place. Many of her readers today live in a fast paced world, whereas Cather brings a slowed down version of life, illustrating why the land was so important. One day she and her brother stopped at a river, where "under the overhanging willows of the opposite bank there was an inlet where the water was deeper and flowed so slowly that it seemed to sleep in the sun. (Page 112)" The characters had no TV shows to get back to, no cell phones interrupting nature's sounds; they had only the land and each other to rely on. Sometimes the pioneers would be subjected to the land's stubborn wishes. "It was still a wild thing that had its ugly moods, and no one knew when they were likely to come, or why. (Page 14)" I'm sure many readers know a person in their life that this quote describes. Willa Cather used her simple writing style and personification of the land to make a foreign era in time relatable to any reader today.
Another big issue in the book was the history long struggle over the roles of men and women. Back then; a woman at the head of the house was an tolerated but not always respected. Today, we still have problems with gender issues in the workplace. When the head of a household realizes his daughter is more intelligent and technologically savvy than his sons, he thinks to himself that "He would much rather, of course, have seen this likeness (to his grandfather's smarts) in one of his sons, but it was not a questions of choice. (Page 16)" Cather's character Alexandra is relatable today because women can identify with her strong will and success as a protagonist, but we can also relate to the hierarchy of the genders in the issues of money, inheritance, and work. When Alexandra wants to marry a man who has no property of his own, her brothers remark, "This is what comes of letting a woman meddle in business. (Page 92)" Although her brothers and the reader are well aware of the successes Alexandra had in farming, they disregard her at a moments notice.
For most people today, working the land to stay alive doesn’t mean anything. Willa Cather manages to bring this way of life to us while still touching on important issues dividing us today. Cather writes, “The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman, (Page 38)” and even today a love for this country can be found by reading about the pioneers of old.


Cather, Willa. O, Pioneers!. New York: Fine Creative Media, Inc, 2003.

The Scarlet Letter, question 1

Edwin Percy Whipple’s review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” for Graham’s Magazine is mostly focused on praising the work of the author. His first descriptions describe the novel as a “beautiful and touching romance.” He goes one to explain that “The Scarlet Letter” is the longest work of Hawthorne thus far, and basically complements his genius. His next section is devoted to outlining “The Custom House,” the introduction given before the story itself begins. Whipple is impressed with Hawthorne’s ability to entertain the reader here, in a comical sense, in a sharp contrast to the seriousness of the novel that follows. He states that “The Custom House” “show(s) how rich and exhaustless a fountain of mirth Hawthorne has at his command.” Obviously, he was quite smitten with the author’s work.
He next delves into the actual work of “The Scarlet Letter.” Whipple says that while the reader may be ready for a great work, they “will hardly be prepared for a novel of so much tragic interest and tragic power.” He believes that Hawthorne’s work pierced through any trivial matters, right “to the core of things.” Whipple also comments on the fact that Hawthorne must have been feeling great pain as well, to be able to transfer it to his characters so powerfully. In the only negative comment I could find in the article, he believes that “the general impression left by it (Hawthorne’s pain) is not satisfying to the artistic sense.”
Whipple then comments on how powerful the novel is, even going so far as to say that “the most abandoned libertine could not read the volume without being thrilled into something like virtuous resolution.” He describes further the power of the work, telling the reader that Hawthorne more deeply understands the subjects of adultery and seduction, and that his work is “more powerful even than those of Sue, Dumas, and George Sand.” He ends the paragraph by discussing the objectivity of the novel. Whipple writes that the ending was crafted through Hawthorne’s understanding of spiritual laws, and that “there is hardly a novel in English Literature more purely objective.”
At the close of Whipple’s review, he says that he will give the reader a simple plot synopsis, although all he really does is to introduce the four main characters, and complement the descriptive quality of Hawthorne’s writing. He also states that if “The Scarlet Letter” was the result of Hawthorne being fired from the Custom House, that he should be kept unemployed in order to write more genius works.
In my opinion, Whipple is a bit contradictory in parts of his review. He states that Hawthorne’s personal connection, his own pain, makes the novel less artistically satisfying, whereas I think the opposite. He also believes that the novel was objective, yet earlier had stated that Hawthorne had a personal stake in the pain of the characters. I viewed the book as more of a critique on Puritan society, where Whipple believed it to be more of a beautiful work describing the society. I agree with much of Whipple’s praise, but I think he gave too much attention to the details of the Custom House, and not enough to the character development and moral dilemmas Hawthorne creates in his work. I most agree with his thoughts on the impact of the novel. In the 19th century when “The Scarlet Letter” and this review were both written, the novel definitely influenced the reader’s moral views. Today, society is very different, but I think that even today Hawthorne’s characters, as Whipple puts it, “pierce…to the core of things.”

Whipple, Edwin Percy. "Ninteenth Century Reviews of The Scarlet Letter, from Graham's Magazine." The Scarlet Letter, and Other Writings. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. 239-241.