Sheppard proposes the idea that believing in God inhibits one’s ability to achieve one’s intellectual potential. I was wondering to what extent Gatsby and O Pioneers! reject or accept this idea.

Thus far in my second reading of Gatsby, it has been interesting viewing Nick Caraway as a third generation mid- western immigrant. After his family gained prominence in the mid-west, Nick was able to attend college and move east to West egg. Interestingly, Nick reflects that in coming to this new place, he is a “guide, a pathfinder, an original settler” and as a result is no longer lonely. In other words, nick experiences a fortitude that derives from his individualism similar to the individualism that Turner mentions in his thesis. However, important to keep in mind, is that Nick is immigrating to an already established society with strange and elitist norms that seem to consume everyone, and therefore he is not an original settler.

Following the death of her brother and close friend, Alexandra grapples with the idea of death. She wonders if death is similar to the darkness you experience before you’re born. Subsequently, as Alexandra lays in bed, she feels tired of life and perhaps even envious of her dead brother. These feelings cause Alexandra to conclude that Frank, not the murder victims, was “paying the heaviest penalty” (112). Moreover, seeing Frank only furthers her “disgust of life” (118). Thus, her somewhat positive view of death seems to help propel her sympathy for Frank in this section.

There are only a few references to the displaced Indians in this novel, but one such reference comes on 95 while Emil is visiting Amédée’s baby and wife. Emil says,  “I say, Angelique, one of Médée’s grandmothers, ‘way back, must have been a squaw. This kid looks exactly like the Indian babies.” Angelique responds by making a face at Emil while Mrs. Chevalier lets out “a stream of fiery patois” (95) that prompts Emil to leave the kitchen. Clearly, Emil’s comment is taken as a severe insult, to which these women react in different ways. Thus, I assume that Emil meant this comment as an insult. Given Emil’s status as a somewhat likable character, why do you think Cather has him make an use the Indians to insult this family? What does that show about his character or perhaps about all characters?

Throughout the first fifty pages of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! the notion of land itself carries a sacred or divine importance. The implied author recounts that John Bergson possessed the “Old-World belief that land, in itself, was desirable” (8). John Bergson’s belief implies that it is not the crops nor the fertility that is valuable, but rather it is the mere ownership of the space. Of course the hope is that the land will help the settlers acquire sufficient income, but it also holds a greater significance.  In part two, Alexandra personifies the land while she discusses its transformation: “We hadn’t any of us much to do with it, Carl. The land did it. It had its little joke. It pretended to be poor because nobody knew how to work it right; and then, all at once, it worked itself. It woke up out of its sleep and stretched itself” (45). In her explanation, Alexandra gives the land and not her family all the credit for its blossoming. Further, she attributes its infertility and unruliness to its sense of humor and to its slumber as if it were a mischievous human. Her words suggest that she does indeed view the land as a divine power.

It will be interesting to see how the text will continue to unveil the divinity of the land in the rest of the novel.