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Cather's O PIONEERS!Dana K. Kinnison aa University of MissouriPublished online: 30 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Dana K. Kinnison (2000) Cather's O PIONEERS!, The Explicator,58:2, 97-98, DOI: 10.1080/00144940009597025

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-. “Out, Out-.” The Poetry of Robert Frost. Ed. Edward Connery Lathem. New York: Holt,

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Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. London: Puffin, 1997.

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nery Lathem. New York: Holt, 1969.

Cather’s 0 PIONEERS!

Although many critics have documented Willa Cather’s extensive connota- tive use of the classics and myth, none has fully appreciated Cather’s one direct reference to her protagonist’s “Amazonian fierceness” in 0 Pioneers! Typically, this passage is ignored in favor of more allusive connections with primitive earth goddesses, as in the case of Mary Ruth Ryder’s claim that Alexandra is reminiscent of Demeter (109). Or the reference is thought mere- ly to comment on Alexandra’s physique. David Stouck observes that she is “strong in body” and parenthetically notes that “at one point she is described as ‘Amazonian”’ (26).

Even rather obvious parallels between Alexandra and the mythical figure of the Amazon have gone largely unobserved. For example, both blur tradition- al gender expectations by pursuing stereotypically male endeavors-the for- mer as land-transforming (not home-establishing) pioneer and the latter as death-dealing warrior. Also, both function independently of the support of men and exhibit emasculating behavior. The image of the Amazon as an active and even aggressive female, who controls her own reproductivity and never marries, brings the same threat to the status quo as does Alexandra. She strides into the novel wearing a man’s overcoat and carrying it “like a young soldier” (Cather 13); she leads the Bergson family while her less farsighted brothers follow behind; and her “glance of Amazonian fierceness” withers the admir- ing and flirtatious drummer (Cather 15). The poor drummer suffers a defeat that echoes the vanquishing of male warriors by the Amazons.

However, the Amazonian reference resonates far beyond Alexandra’s human nature. It also tells us much about the Nebraska plains and the superhuman heights to which this character will ascend. According to William Blake Tyrrell, the Amazonian domain “is literally and metaphorically the frontier between civilization and savagery”; it is distinguished from human culture by being a land where both subhuman and superhuman figures reside (56). Ama- zons dwell on the edge of the inhabited and known world, and so they are sometimes depicted as belligerent hordes of warring and disfigured women. On the other hand, the Amazon is also a goddesslike creature with exceptional abilities, the wondrous and magical image of a transfigured woman. In some

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tales, the wise counsel and kindness of the Amazons toward the vanquished evoke veneration for these women. Either way, the Amazon is a symbol of a powerful female energy, a vestigial image of a lost matriarchal culture.

Like the home of the Amazons, the Nebraska plains are a liminal temtory that is barely civilized. The frontier is not only the former site of savagery- as the Euro-American settlers see it-but also the domain of the divine. Only in that environment, where the usual restrictions on human behavior (and even on human imagination) do not apply, can the larger-than-life figure of an Alexandra come into being. In her youth, Alexandra embodies the power and potential threat of a warring Amazon, but ultimately she more nearly fits the matriarchal model as she leads a family, a community, a generation, and even a glorious epoch in the history of a nation. In her quest, her vision is peace- ful, and her power is accompanied by wisdom.

Myth also tells us that the home of the Amazons was bountiful with fruit ready to be picked from the vine. The ability to find sustenance so easily, without toil, further identifies the Amazons as superhuman figures (Tyrrell 58) . Alexandra’s process of transforming the plains into fields is ostensibly accomplished with ease and occurs between chapters; taking up virtually no space in the novel. In Cather’s romantic rather than realistic rendering of the pioneer experience, she describes none of the hard work that was actually nec- essary in civilizing the frontier. Any physical struggle that did take place was not engaged in by Alexandra herself. Having been relieved of field labor by her father’s dying bequest, she is the manager and imaginative force behind the transformation of the land. The ease with which she makes her own land bountiful continues the parallel with the Amazons well beyond the one early reference.

Although the myth of the savage, powerful, and superhuman Amazon may give way to the agrarian myth of Demeter as the novel progresses, the spirit that Alexandra summons from the land and with which she always maintains a mysterious connection remains a wild spirit. Alexandra’s figure parallels the image of the Amazon throughout the tale, empowering the homely setting and character and carrying the novel far beyond the usual pioneer tale.

-DANA K. KINNISON, University of Missouri

WORKS CITED

Cather, Willa. 0 Pioneers! 1913. Lincoln: U Nebraska P, 1992. Ryder, Mary Ruth. Willa Cather and the Classical Myth: The Search for the New Parnassus.

Stouck, David. ”0 Pioneers!: Willa Cather and the Epic Imagination.” Prairie Schooner 46

Tyrrell, William Blake. Amazons: A Srudy in Athenian Mythmaking. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Studies in American Literature 1 1 . Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1990.

(1972): 23-34.

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