Beauty In Willa Catcher's O Pioneers

What is beauty? Beauty can be defined differently by each individual. To some people beauty can be a physical attribute to others it could be found only within a person. Yet, in the book O Pioneers by Willa Catcher and Chief Seattle’s Speech of 1851 beauty is perceived and acknowledge through vivid illustrations of the simplest character: the land. The two describe the land in different ways and at the same time they have very close similarities.

The book O pioneer was written 62 years after Chief Seattle’s speech. It tells the story of the first settlers trying to establish a settlement on the Nebraska tableland, and the speech by Chief Seattle speaks about the degrading of his tribe over land. Early in O Pioneer, “Men were too weak to make

any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness” (Cather 11). This line from O Pioneers demonstrates that even after all the hardships people here were unable to tame the land and even throw their struggles and the harshness of Mother Nature the land was able to show its beauty through its fury. Yet, in the speech by Chief Seattle he illustrates that his people were able to tame the land. For example, in the quote “Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished” (Seattle 62). His vision of the land shows the beauty of how all the components of the land have been walked on by someone within the tribe.
Further acknowledgement of the difference between the two is how the population has been trampled by or over this natural resource. Cather writes, “The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its somber wastes” (11). This line shows how the land does not want to be inhabited by any human being. It hopes that if it shows fury and pain to its inhabitants, they will leave and never return. Another example, of pain delivered upon the people of this small settlement is that “The record of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches on stone left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of human strivings” (Cather 14), and even through this pain the people refuse to surrender to the land. They want to be able to understand the land to learn from it. Yet, in the speech of 1851, the land wants to be known and remembered by everyone who has ever set foot on it: “There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor” (Seattle, 59) demonstrates how the tribe was able to run free upon the country. It also shows how the land wanted to appeal to everyone to show its natural kind of beauty.
Despite the many hardships that were encountered by both parties, neither refuse to call the land their home.

For example, in O Pioneers the author illustrates how “the homesteads were few and far apart; here and there a windmill gaunt against the sky, a sod house crouching in a hollow” (Cather 11). This phrase demonstrates that the people were eager to make the land its home to be able to raise a family within its premises. This line is also very closely related to what Chief Seattle stated: “To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground” (60). This line illustrates that even though his people are few, he will love this land until the end of his

days.
Furthermore, both pieces of work illustrate close similarity of the land embracing its occupants.

For example, at the end of part one in O pioneers the characters of the book discuss how the land has finally, after so many years accepted their presence: “It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious” (Cather 39). This quote demonstrates how not giving up can lead to something much more glorious and beautiful. Another example, of the acknowledgment of the people by the land would be the quote by Chief Seattle: “Thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch” (62). This quote demonstrates how his people were welcome by the land even though they faced discrimination by the white people. It also demonstrates that his ancestors were grand people who believe that the land had more to

offer.
One of the similarities between these two prints would be the way that both discuss the land as having a Great Spirit. In O Pioneers “The Genius of the divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it” (Cather 39) and also in Chief Seattle speech the phrase “Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors-the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the heart of our people” (61). This illustrates how people in both O Pioneers and The speech of 1851 believe that the land had a higher power and there for portraying the land as beautiful. The people believe that the great spirits help guide the crops and everything that lived on the land. These quotes demonstrate that even when things seem hard there is always another outcome to everything upon this land.
While both O Pioneers and Chief Seattle’s Speech emphasized the land. In O Pioneers the land is described as fierce and savage. Yet, in Chief Seattle’s Speech of 1851 the main focus was the beauty of the land although his people were being discriminated. Despite the differences in the land each person was able to have higher understanding of what the land had to offer and its values.