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Critical Analysis of "O Pioneers"

Uploaded by spootyhead on Apr 18, 2007

Critical Analysis of "O Pioneers"

The book “O Pioneers” marks the character’s relationship with society, history and relationship with the land. The land is their home and their childhood so it kept them from moving to the West. This event was talked about in our class and it helped me to understand the story easier, so the story supported what I have studied in class. This book was written by Willa Cather which is known to express her books to prove that “the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”

This story overall talks about how people strive for the American Dream. America’s first Puritans were dissenters, forced to reconcile their impulse toward revolution against the society that confined them from the idea of community. Since them, America had been marked between the personal and public, the individual dream (which was Alexandra) and the American Dream (the Western expansion).

Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, the United States embarked upon a massive westward expansion that more than tripled the country size. But by 1890, as the Census Bureau declared, there was no longer a true frontier in the contiguous United States. The American West Remained large untamed, but the processes of populating had begun. When drought and depression strike, Alexandra’s determination allowed her to reserve. In America, a land had always been believed to bring a better life, bur many families sold their farms and moved away. But Alexandra believed in the promise of the country, she convinced her brothers to buy more land and to learn new innovative farming techniques.

Alexandra Bergson’s relationship with the land formed a struggle. She experted her will upon the land even as it changed herself in many ways. Yet her relationship with the land went deeper than more control or influence. She seemed curiously empty of human emotion and personality. Alexandra lacked a personal inner life. Her relationship with Carl Linstrum was not romantic. Her attachment to him was unemotional. She did not feel any attractions toward him. She did what she had to do so she can stay alive and not suffer through the hard times.

Alexandra and this story reminded me of the movement when my family moved from Vietnam...

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Uploaded by:   spootyhead

Date:   04/18/2007

Category:   Literature

Length:   4 pages (861 words)

Views:   4555

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