“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.” This famous line tells us everything we need to know about O, Pioneers! Willa Cather’s poignant, powerful masterpiece is a perfect example of her subtle artistry. In a dramatic departure from the fiction writers of her day, Cather chose the humble, poor settlers of the prairie as her subject matter, rather than the more powerful members of society. By examining the heart of a pioneer woman and the lives of her family, Cather sheds a unique light on the history of a nation.
Like all of Cather’s great novels, the genesis of O Pioneers!, can be found in the experiences of her youth. In 1881 Willa Cather’s family left their home in civilized Virginia and settled in Red Cloud, Nebraska. The great prairie divide, terrifying in its vast spaces, made an indelible impression on nine-year-old Willa. Her keen mind recorded every detail of the lives she saw unfolding around her on the frontier. She felt the uneasy coexistence of the stern Scandinavians with the volatile French and the exotic Bohemians. Hours were spent listening to the older settlers recall their first forays into the wild new land and their attempts to build a world of order in the chaos. After a successful career as a journalist and editor, she mined those memories to create a new kind of fiction.
Pioneering had traditionally been viewed as a kind of a battle between the land and its conquerors, who were invariably male. Instead, O Pioneers! takes a deep, almost mythological approach to the subject. Here is no conquering hero, battling savages and subduing nature, but a woman who tames the beast through her love and intelligence. Cather’s heroine, Alexandra Bergson, has one great passion, and it is not another human, but the great, unconquered prairie. After her father’s death she assumes management of the family farm. Though her brothers are ready to give up and return to city life, Alexandra sees that a new world requires a new way of thinking. She knows the land can be made to yield its riches if only she can discern its secrets. Cather’s description of Alexandra’s feelings toward the land read like a love story, with the land personified as the beloved:
“For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich strong and glorious. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before.” (44)
Juxtaposed on this great story of pioneering is the very human tragedy that plays out between Alexandra’s brother, Emil, and the Bohemian girl, Marie. Cather’s sweet, compassionate portrayal of the lovers and their dilemma refuses to make a villain of any participant. The great strides taken in colonizing the new land are balanced by the stumbles and falls of its individual inhabitants. Yet Cather does not leave us feeling discouraged by human weakness, but rather encouraged by the strength of those who strive to overcome, and the continuity of the new life they build. “We come and go,” she reflects, “but the land is always there.”
Alexandra Bergson is a woman I am glad to know. Cather closes the novel by saying of her and her beloved land, “fortunate country that is one day to receive hearts like Alexandra’s into its bosom, to give them out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining eyes of youth!” (210) As the fortunate descendant of courageous pioneers like Alexandra, I marvel at the vision and courage they displayed in a world as different from their own as the moon is from mine. Cather’s novels offer an insight into the hearts that first fashioned the life we take for granted. The pioneers of our nation worked a great labor of love, and Willa Cather recaptures their passion in a tribute worthy of their sacrifice.
O Pioneers! is the Best Books Club selection for January.
Best Books Club Reading List 2002
January O Pioneers! Willa Cather
February Possession A.S. Byatt
March Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
April Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner
May The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux
June The Once and Future King T.H. White
