Taming the wilderness in O pioneers! : Willa Cather's homage to the Nebraska pioneer.

Abstract

When discussing the importance of the European settler in the formation of the American character, literary and social historians such as Perry Miller, Frederick Jackson Turner, and David Williams, to name a few, choose to focus on the strife of the New England settler. Historically, though, the Puritans have been followed by waves of immigrants who were also European but who were not English and did not share the Puritan beliefs. Willa Cather's fictional characters were inspired by the pioneers who moved westward and who settled on the Great Plains, specifically in Nebraska. In 0 Pioneers! Willa Cather portrays the struggle of the Nebraska pioneer and does it from the biblical perspective of the wilderness tradition. The strife of her pioneers can be regarded as a reiteration of the conquest of the wilderness of Sinai by the Israelites in the Old Testament. The stories of the successful pioneer Alexandra Bergson and of the deaths of Emil and Marie Shabata are tailored after the Book of Genesis, namely after the stories of creation and destruction and of finding God's grace by conquering the wilderness. By using such timeless themes, Willa Cather draws one's attention to the people who inspired her. Cather's novel becomes thus a legacy for the place that the Nebraska pioneer has earned in the physical landscape of North America and in the landscape of the American consciousness.