American Lit II: O Pioneers! was published in 1913, back in the days when Sigmund Freud was all the rage among intellectuals like Willa Cather. What I’d like you to do today is to closely analyze the following passage, which closes Part III of the novel and sets the stage for the climactic events of Part IV:She [Alexandra] had never been in love, she had never indulged in sentimental reveries. Even as a girl she had looked upon men as work-fellows. She had grown up in serious times.
So, what’s up with that? Is Cather getting all Freudian on us here? All religious? Or what?
There was one fancy indeed, which persisted through her girlhood. It most often came to her on Sunday mornings, the one day in the week when she lay late abed listening to the familiar morning sounds; the windmill singing in the brisk breeze, Emil whistling as he blacked his boots down by the kitchen door. Sometimes, as she lay thus luxuriously idle, her eyes closed, she used to have an illusion of being lifted up bodily and carried lightly by some one very strong. It was a man, certainly, who carried her, but he was like no man she knew; he was much larger and stronger and swifter, and he carried her as easily as if she were a sheaf of wheat. She never saw him, but, with eyes closed, she could feel that he was yellow like the sunlight, and there was the smell of ripe cornfields about him. She could feel him approach, bend over her and lift her, and then she could feel herself being carried swiftly off across the fields. After such a reverie she would rise hastily, angry with herself, and go down to the bath-house that was partitioned off the kitchen shed. There she would stand in a tin tub and prosecute her bath with vigor, finishing it by pouring buckets of cold well-water over her gleaming white body which no man on the Divide could have carried very far.
As she grew older, this fancy more often came to her when she was tired than when she was fresh and strong. Sometimes, after she had been in the open all day, overseeing the branding of the cattle or the loading of the pigs, she would come in chilled, take a concoction of spices and warm home-made wine, and go to bed with her body actually aching with fatigue. Then, just before she went to sleep, she had the old sensation of being lifted and carried by a strong being who took from her all her bodily weariness.
Wednesday, February 11
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4 comments:
I believe that Cather is giving the reader a taste of both religion and Freud. In regards to religion, Cather explores how one aprroaches sex and religion. Alexandra has these thoughts and from what she has read in the bible she discovers that they are wrong. To cleanse herself Alexandra must remove the dirtiness from her body and basically rebaptise herself to her faith. From what I know many religious people see sex as dirty and a shower right afterwards cleanses the individual and makes them pure again in the eyes of god.
In regards to Freud I think Cather hints at the subject but never fully explores it. She allows for her reader to find their own interpretation of what she's saying. I believe she put this aspect in the novel to make the reader think and decide if she meant what she meant.
montoyajd
Cather obviously knew about Freud. The first sentence of the passage shows her sexual frustration. "She had never been in love". I think the visions of someone carrying her is her mind unconsciously showing its frustration. Kinda like a Freudian slip of the mind. She is trying to show her strength without men and yet her body and mind urns for the companionship and love of a man. I think that Cather chose to have Alexandra single for so long to show how successful women could be without a man.
Cather is showing us both the Freud side of life and the religious side. I believe it was more religious than Freudian. Everything about it, not seeing his face, being lifted by something that is more powerful than you, being carried away, his smell, points to a religious experience.
I think that this passage is somewhat Freudian, but at the same time it is an allusion to the Bible. She is using Freud's idea of suppressed ideas in regards to sexuality, or possibly sexual abuse by her father. This dream could also be an allusion to God and the father figure in heaven. Since the character is never given a face, but is only described as being very strong, we do not know whom this man is. When she goes and washes herself, this can also be an allusion to the cleansing of sins, or to the Freudian idea of her feeling dirty because of the dream she had just had.
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