Different components of Willa Cather’s life influenced her novel Lucy Gayheart immensely. Living in the region and the time era that she did, her writing is considered to be local color literature. Many of the events took place in her home state, and Cather also spoke of many different places within the country. This influences the main character because when traveling between two diverse areas, Lucy’s lifestyle and mindset changes stereotypically. Also, there were people in Cather’s life that influenced characters in Lucy Gayheart and that shared many similarities with each other. Her location and her acquaintances have a very parallel structure to the theme and characters in Lucy Gayheart.
Cather’s writing is regional literature because it takes place at the end of the nineteenth century, and she is from the area of Nebraska and the Midwest. This is also one of the settings of the novel where Lucy is originally from. Chicago and New York City are contrasted from Nebraska, very diverse, just as how Lucy was viewed as a musician before and after living in both locations. An example...
Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop: A Narrative Though many reviewers of Willa Cather's, Death Comes to the Archbishop, had difficulty classifying the book, Cather herself preferred to call it a narrative rather than a novel. I tend to agree with Cather. One definition from Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "narrative" as "a story", which is then defined as, "the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious". A novel on the other hand is defined as having, "a more or less complex plot or pattern of events." Where most books tend to follow certain guidelines as to plot, Cather chooses to take a different route.
The worlds about which Willa Cather and Laura Esquivel write hardly seen congruous. Written in different eras, in different styles, and in different cultures, Cather's A Lost Lady and Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate appear, at first glance, to have little in common. Cather's Victorian realism seems totally incompatible with Esquivel's surrealistic imagery, and yet, if we look closely, we can find common threads woven between the two works. Although differences are obvious, subtle similarities exist in setting, conflict, and central characters.
Crane?s handling of Maggie is one that is very American. It leaves the reader without closure of the character. After Maggie?s death her mother wants too forgive her, but it is all too late. Nathaniel Hawthorne?s treatment of Hester Prynne was too be expected because of the society she lived in and of course because her ?mistake? (Pearl) would be with her always reminding the community of what she did. Willa Cather is the only author of these three to give her main character, who just happens to be a woman, a positive role within her community despite the tension between the two.
Flannery O’ Connor is known for her great short stories, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “Wise Blood”, “The Violent Bear It Away”, and “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” As a young reader, I often analyze every aspect of an author’s work in an attempt to figure out their influences and inspirations. In this paper, I will be unraveling the underlying factors that possibly played a part in O’Connor’s writing. Could her upbringing be the reason she wrote using southern dialect? Her religion majorly showed throughout all of her writings, so could that have been one of her main influence...
In 1922, Cather became “ increasingly distressed with the growing mechanization and mass-produced quality of American society” (Norton). This was the time her writing took a new direction and became more concerned with finding alternative values to the materialistic life she increasingly felt around her. This is shown through St. Peter’s character in many instances. St. Peter was extremely idealistic and generally avoided anything that even remotely seemed materialistic. In Book 3 of The Professor’s House, St. Peter reflects on Tom Outland’s untimely death. He
Flannery O’Connor lived most of her life in the southern state of Georgia. When once asked what the most influential things in her life were, she responded “Being a Catholic and a Southerner and a writer.” (1) She uses her knowledge of southern religion and popular beliefs to her advantage throughout the story. Not only does she thoroughly depict the southern dialect, she uses it more convincingly than other authors have previously attempted such as Charles Dickens and Zora Neale Hurston. In other works, the authors frequently use colloquialism so “local” that a reader not familiar with those slang terms, as well as accents, may have difficulty understanding or grasping the meaning of the particular passage. O’Connor not only depicts a genuine southern accent, she allows the characters to maintain some aspect of intelligence, which allows the audience to focus on the meaning of the passage, rather than the overbearing burden of interpreting a rather “foreign language.”
Brown M. & Crone R. Willa Cather the Woman and Her Works. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970.
Willa Cather’s use of sentimentality-inspiring diction creates a nostalgic memory of Jim’s childhood. Her words are very descriptive and immerse the reader in the scene and tone she
Geography is the start of the novel and of the division of culture. There is hatred and derision linked heavily to the divide. This she tells primarily in historical formats, which she then intersperses with poetry. This makes the historical/ political pers...
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
We the readers take a deeper look into Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Possibility of Evil.” Instead of just looking at the narrator and how that affects the theme, we are now looking into how the purpose of this story is best understood through the literary movement of Regionalism. With my background knowledge I know that regionalism represents the stories characters, dialect, and customs. Using this knowledge I will be able to get a sense of what Shirley Jackson’s short story is truly about.
Summers, Claude J. "'A Losing Game in the End': Aestheticism and Homosexuality in Cather's 'Paul's Case.'" Modern Fiction Studies 36:1 (Spring 1990): 103-119.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
... Victorian values. She is supposed to be submissive and delicate, and she does attempt to do what her cousin asks and remain ladylike. Towards the middle of the story Lucy has obviously been thinking a lot about her future and she begins to speak her mind but is usually shut down by Cecil or other Victorian characters. By the end of the novel, Lucy has realized Cecil will never treat her as an equal and she leaves him.
Between the years of 1865 and 1914, American literature was mainly comprised of three writing styles: realism, regionalism, and naturalism. Realism aims to portray life realistically. Though realism...