Pioneering Feminism in Willa Cather's O Pioneers!

Introduction: Alexandra Bergson as Feminist Pioneer

Willa Cather's 1913 novel O Pioneers! was the first of her Great Plains trilogy and one of the first American novels to depict the pioneering feminism of a central character. The heroine is Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of a Swedish immigrant who is left the family farm in Nebraska when her father dies. As others abandon the prairie life, she is determined to make it work. She dedicates her efforts in part to the dream of seeing her younger brother Emil succeed and attend college. She convinces her brothers to mortgage the farm in order to buy more land while others are giving up — her reasoning being that the land will eventually make them prosperous. The gambit pays off and the Bergsons become wealthy, yet they fail to find the happiness that prosperity is supposed to bring. In other words, the American Dream eludes them, even as Alexandra loses her family and her friend Maria Shabata.

Nonetheless, Alexandra Bergson remains committed to the land and her singular ambition of tending to it steadfastly. In this sense, she expresses a form of pioneering feminism. She also breaks a number of traditional gender norms: as Douglas Werden points out, she not only manages her land herself but also proposes to her future husband rather than waiting submissively for him to do so. She is a take-charge figure — a feminist pioneer. This paper examines the feminism portrayed by Alexandra Bergson in O Pioneers! and shows how it connects with the loss of her family and Maria Shabata.

Crossing Gender Barriers: Alexandra and Maria Shabata

Werden argues that Cather's novel is really "about two women who are pioneers in crossing socially constructed gender barriers" (199). Those two women are, of course, Alexandra Bergson and Maria Shabata. Alexandra crosses constructed gender barriers by assuming sole responsibility for the farm and taking unorthodox actions to maintain its integrity — such as keeping the hogs out of the mud following advice given to her by Crazy Ivar. She also crosses them by pursuing a marriage of her own choosing and arranging it herself rather than waiting for Carl, her future husband, to act. By all accounts, she is a practical, pragmatic, hard-nosed woman who has neither the time nor the inclination to rely upon someone else to do what needs to be done. Her father charged her with seeing to the farm on his deathbed (Cather), and that task remains her sole focus, even when her brothers show greater interest in leaving the farm for other pursuits.

Maria Shabata crosses the constructed gender barrier by entering into a love affair with Emil, Alexandra's younger brother. Such affairs may be commonplace today, but on the prairie they were highly unorthodox. Finding the two together is all the more shocking for Maria's husband, who responds in a drunken rage. The illicit affair ends in the murder of both lovers when Maria's husband discovers them together beneath the mulberry tree.

Loss, Prosperity, and the Land as Lover

Alexandra suffers substantial loss throughout the novel, even as she gains prosperity through her work on the farm. Her work-related prosperity reflects her commitment. Had she devoted herself to a man earlier in the novel, she would likely have achieved prosperity in a domestic sense — a family, children, and a household to tend. However, as a farmer she succeeds with just as much energy as might have been directed toward the traditional gender role of homemaker. On the prairie, her aim is not domestic but agricultural. She is not seeking a domestic arrangement but rather striving to make the farm a success. As David Laird notes, "she perceives the land in intimate, even passionate terms, drawing strength from it and, in return, giving of her spirit and imagination" (244). For much of the novel, the land is her lover — and that may explain her recurring dream of a godlike male figure carrying her over the fields. Perhaps that male presence is the personification of the land repaying her with the same love and affection she has shown to it.

Alternatively, it may be that underneath everything, Alexandra is pining for a man. Cather offers clues that this reading is also plausible. She has a fondness for Carl that is thwarted by her brothers' hostility toward him when he returns to the prairie after an absence of fifteen years. The brothers are jealous: they have labored to work the land and become prosperous, while Carl disappeared and now seems to be working his way back to claim Alexandra's heart and hand. They make their feelings known, and Carl, taking the hint, leaves again — this time for Alaska. Alexandra is left feeling lonely, especially after her brothers depart as well. Her dream could indicate that the land has not been enough, that she remains unfulfilled, and that what she wants above all else is a husband.

Cather's Alexandra is, at bottom, a complex character who also possesses traditional feminine qualities. She dreams of a strong, powerful, almost godlike man who carries her over the fields (Cather). She has had this dream since girlhood, and it suggests that beneath her pragmatic exterior she is still a woman in the traditional sense: she yearns for a male presence to support and love her. Gustafson suggests that Alexandra is not so much a proto-feminist as simply a woman who is bound to the land her father left in her hands — determined in spirit in everything she does, whether tending the farm or securing a husband by proposing to Carl herself.

Conclusion: The Female Alexander

In conclusion, Alexandra Bergson is a pioneering feminist in many ways: she commands the land, acts independently, breaks gender barriers, succeeds in her endeavors, and essentially destroys the myth that the frontier was a man's world where women could not make it on their own. Alexandra is a female Alexander — and so she is no ordinary woman. She is tall, powerful, and beautiful, and like Alexander of Macedonia, she has come to claim what is hers.

In Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, Alexandra transforms a failing farm into a successful and prosperous enterprise, but in doing so she loses her family and her friend. Those losses do not embitter her; for she ultimately gains a husband and has another of her own private dreams fulfilled — though to what extent is not precisely told. Her story is one of resilience, sacrifice, and quiet heroism, and it remains among the most compelling portraits of a feminist pioneer in American literary history.

Works Cited

Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24

Dyck, Reginald. "Willa Cather's Reluctant New Woman Pioneer." Great Plains Quarterly 23.3 (2003): 161–173.

Greenwald, Anthony G., Brian A. Nosek, and Mahzarin R. Banaji. "Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: I. An Improved Scoring Algorithm." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85.2 (2003): 197.

Gustafson, Neil. "Getting Back to Cather's Text: The Shared Dream in O Pioneers!" Western American Literature 30.2 (1995): 151–162.

Laird, D. "Willa Cather's Women: Gender, Place, and Narrativity in O Pioneers! and My Ántonia." Great Plains Quarterly (1992): 242–253.

Quawas, Rula. "Carving an Identity and Forging the Frontier: The Self-Reliant Female Hero in Willa Cather's O Pioneers!" (2005).

Werden, Douglas W. "'She Had Never Humbled Herself': Alexandra Bergson and Marie Shabata as the 'Real' Pioneers of O Pioneers!" Great Plains Quarterly 22.3 (2002): 199–215.

Worden, Daniel. "'I Like to Be Like a Man': Female Masculinity in Willa Cather's O Pioneers! and My Ántonia." Masculine Style. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2011. 81–106.