The psychological strength of Alexandra is clearly visible when her dying father entrusts her with the family's land. According to father, she is supposed to be take care of the family's estates when he dies. The father seems to have developed more confidence in Alexandra in comparison to her other brothers, Lou and Oscar. It is for this reason that he makes a will stating that the Alexandra would be the caretaker of the family's estates once he dies. Surprisingly, the father's trust in her seems to pay-off when she manages to preserve the land three years after his death during a famine (Freud 23-25). The great strength of the female character is demonstrated in this portion of the story when she manages to intellectually apply her abilities to preserve the family's estates. The crafting of this character by the author to exhibit great personality to earn the trust….

Willa ather
Willa Sibert ather was born in Winchester, Virginia, in the year 1873. She lived in Virginia until she turned nine years old at which point she moved to the Nebraska prairie, to the borough of atherton, which bore her familial namesake because so many members of ather's family already lived here. This move to the prairie and her subsequent period of growing to adulthood on the prairie would be extremely influential in her later life and writing. Indeed, even when she was working as an editor in New York ity, it would be the prairie that would provide her main inspiration for writing material in such novels as o Pioneers! And My Antonia. Although, as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, her beginnings may seem quite humble, indeed, nonetheless, she achieved much in the subsequent years following the end of her childhood. She attended the….

Mrs. Forrester is the most affected of all.
Changes happen irremediably to the whole town. People remaining in the old word are further and further drawn apart from people going along with the new order, till there is no way of communication between the two left. usiness is treated from a much broader angle, companies develop in a higher speed in terms of tome and space. "Cather's A Lost lady is written towards the end of the Age of Reform, as Hofstadter termed it. This is an age when the small-town gentry, the bankers and lawyers, are being swept aside by the inevitable growth of a national rather than a regional elite. They feel their status collapse during the 20th century as the national ceiling on wealth rises significantly."(Smith, J.N, (www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/lostlady/about.html)

There is also the nuance between black and white, which role is played by Neil Herbert, the nephew of judge….

Willa Cather's "Paul's Case"
By the turn of the twentieth century, America had established itself as an important world power. Not only had the U.S. grown into the world's largest agricultural producer, the establishment of the first transcontinental railway had helped fuel the industrial revolution. By 1900, major oil fields were being tapped, allowing the United States to dominate the world's petroleum markets.

The early years of the 1900s also saw the emergence of the automobile industry with the establishment of the Ford Motor Company in 1903; the proliferation of telephones and electricity; a boom in urban construction with large industries attracting migrant populations in search of employment and a better quality of life; and a boom in the steel industry, with the world measuring the strength of a nation's economic activity by the number of tons of steel produced.

In the 1880s, Andrew Carnegie had constructed the world's largest steel mill in….

Mortal Enemy, by Willa Cather [...] how Cather uses symbolism in the novel. Imagery forms the backbone of this story, and opens up the characters to the reader.
MY MORTAL ENEMY

Cather uses imagery throughout this novel to indicate and realize the characters, as well as their reactions to each other. Early in the novel, we learn quite a bit about Myra and her personality from this compelling small piece of imagery: "Her sarcasm was so quick, so fine at the point -- it was like being touched by a metal so cold that one doesn't know whether one is burned or chilled" (Cather 14). The imagery conveys Myra's sarcasm perfectly, making it real and tangible to the reader who immediately pictures a cold and sharp piece of metal. It also clearly indicates how young Nellie felt at experiencing her sarcasm, she did not know whether she was burned or chilled,….

Willa Cather and Henry Adams
Willa Cather was seriously interested in the idea of what exactly makes a person a true artist. Her short stories including The Sculptor's Funeral revolve around this thesis as the author tries to unearth the true characteristics of a real artist. In her attempt to highlight the traits that makes an artist different from the rest of the herd, she examines the conflict between materialism and artistic aspirations that is the single most important factor affecting an artist's life and soul. " ... The story stands as one of Cather's most powerful treatments of the conflict between artistic ideals and materialistic value systems" (Arnold, 1077)

In this story, the author carefully highlights the true spirit of an artist in order to prove that without possessing such a spirit, the artist can ruin his own life thereby doing complete injustice to his artistic talents. Cather maintains that it….

Sculptor's Funeral," by illa Cather, and the essay "Art for Art's Sake," by E.M. Forster. Specifically, it will discuss how these two pieces reflect each other.
ART IN LITERATURE

Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort (George Bernard Shaw 1909).

George Bernard Shaw's dry outlook on art directly opposes the thoughts of E.M. Forster's essay, but his acerbic look at art may have more to do with illa Cather's short story than most of us would care to admit. Most people do not appreciate the effort that goes into continually creating art. Some can do it, some can dream of it, and some, like the townspeople of Sand City, can only find fault in anything they cannot do or do not understand.

Daily life in the small town of Sand City is ordered and normal, very different from the artistic life of….

Modernism in Willa Cather's A LOST LADY
Lost Lady, by Willa Cather, like other modernist novels describes a society in transition from one culture to another, and the idealization of the past that occurs as individuals struggle with new mores and times. This was, in fact, Cather's first modernist novel. It is a classic novel about life in on the Great Plains, and about the materialistic world that supplanted the old frontier. It is about nostalgia for a world that is dying.

In the novel, which is set in the small railroad town of Sweet Water, the finest family is that of the Forresters. Mrs. Marian Forrester is renowned as a wonderful hostess. She and her husband represent the old culture. Mr. Forrester is a retired, wealthy railway man, and Mrs. Forrester is his beautiful, much younger wife. She is a strong, beautiful woman in a pastoral setting. Her husband boasts that….

American Literature -- Unit
do see the concept of the new woman and new man in our culture today?

Yes to some degree, the concept of the new woman and new man can be detected in modern (2016) society. omen are at the forefront of literary and social life. omen have come a long way in terms of their "autonomous selfhood, sexuality," and right to participate in the same social events as men. omen now are a big part of the American workforce; women were no longer locked into the domestic realm of the American household, and today a huge majority of women work (at least part time) outside the home.

The new man as reflected in the readings is also similar to today's male, but not to the same degree as the new woman. I agree with Carolyn Lockhart that men were not transitioning into mature, modern people like women were in….

This reveals the more liberated ideals of the west and of the pioneer culture. First, Alexandra envisions herself "being lifted and carried lightly by some one very strong. He was with her a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms she felt free from pain." The masculine figure takes the place of the gossamer female angel. She is about to be subsumed by the ethereal lover. "hen he laid her down on her bed again, she opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she saw him, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his face was covered." Here, gender roles are again reversed as they are in the previous passage when the man is the angel. The man is now being veiled, his "face was covered." Veil is usually used to conceal the woman's but not the….

Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Cather share a bond when it comes to style and framing fiction with language. ords are not simply meant to describe a character or scene; they can help round the story through how they are arranged. Fitzgerald illustrates how language can blossom around particular aspects of characters and ideas. Hemingway and Cather demonstrate how short, concise sentences can enhance a scene by increasing tension. Style emerges as an afterthought but as we study it, we realize it is a deliberate act that is so subtle that most readers overlook it when it comes to reading. Nouns and sentences are structured in a way that helps the reader make an emotional connection with the reader. These writers have different styles but this does not make one better or worse than the other. The variety we see in them represents the vast capability of writing styles around the world.

orks….

Country of the Pointed Firs," by Sarah Orne Jewett, "The Awakening," by Kate Chopin and "My Antonia," by Willa Cather. Specifically, it will show the development of the complexity, or the straightforwardness, of the point-of-view. Point-of-view is often as difficult to pinpoint as the characters of great novels. Sometimes, the point-of-view in a novel can shift and change, but the bottom line is -- point-of-view is a compelling way to keep the reader interested in the story, while telling more about the characters. Thus, point-of-view is a central part of the telling of a tale, and that is one of the most important techniques a writer can use to get their point across to the reader.
Point-of-View in Three Works

Point-of-view is one of the devices used to make or break a novel, and these three pieces all use point-of-view effectively and quite differently to set the stage, tell the story,….

Thus, while one character had a targetable aim, the other, Antonia, had a symbolic purpose for Jim's life.
Antonia's role in the novel goes beyond that of encompassing the pure nature of childhood. It represents a clear window of strong powerful women. Better said, "This extremely influential character represents a positive compromise with feminist ideals. She is independent and strong while still living as a wife and mother" (Giglio, 2006). In this sense, Antonia is the embodiment of the successful woman, still not the average successful woman. This is largely due to the fact that the expression of her achievements is not always considered to be the common desire for women those days. Still, the symbolist part of this side of the character reflects in fact the social reality of that era and from Cather's point-of-view, it is a fair and clear recollection of her past.

Jim's complex character can be….

illa Cather and Herman Melville both explore themes of psychological and social isolation in their short stories. In Cather's "Paul's Case," the title character is a vibrant young man whose passion and creativity is constrained by his pitiful life in Pittsburgh, where his only solace is his work as an usher. Melville's protagonist Bartleby in "Bartleby the Scrivener" lacks the joie du vivre that Paul possesses. However, both of these protagonists plummet toward death as the only foreseeable relief from the terrible injunction of life. Their approaches to death are different, though. Bartleby is wholly unlike the young Paul, who feels regret the instant he realizes the "folly of his haste," (Cather para 65). On the contrary, the senior Bartleby remains fully resigned to self-abnegation throughout his adult life. hereas Paul believes that if he only had money, he could be free from the clutches of his past and embrace….

This meant that men held positions of power and authority in all the public spheres including economics/business, politics/the law, and the bearing of arms. Men also possessed social status that women did not have, enabling the perpetuation of a patriarchal society.
y applying Freudian psychoanalysis and feminist theory, I will analyze the personality of the independent, strong, risk taker, and smart Alexandra ergson in Willa Cather's O Pioneer! As Smith points out in Freud's Philosophy of the Unconscious, the psychoanalytic model lends insight into the underlying psychic forces promoting personal and collective change. With regards to a singular female like Alexandra ergson, psychoanalysis takes into account the protagonist's family background, tracing her ego development across the course of her lifetime starting with childhood. The significance of my research is that it studies the possibility of female's success in life under certain circumstances and refutes the outmoded opinion that suggests the….

I. Introduction
- Introduce the novel "My Antonia" by Willa Cather
- Provide some background information on the author and the context of the novel
- Present the focus of the essay and the main argument or thesis statement

II. The Setting and Landscape
- Describe the importance of the setting in "My Antonia"
- Discuss the role of the Nebraska landscape in shaping the characters and the story
- Analyze how the physical environment influences the emotions and behaviors of the characters

III. The Characters
- Introduce the main characters of the novel, including Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda
- Examine the development and complexity of these characters throughout....