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.