The first 50 pages of the novel introduces the reader to the Swedish Bergson family as well as characters of the Divide, a region of the frontier.<\/p>\n
Upon their father’s death, the Bergson siblings are faced with the decision to remain on the frontier tying their fate to the success of the land or to retreat to the city \u00a0where work is sure to be found. Alexandra, the protagonist of the story, was left as head-of-house following her father’s death and decides to remain. Sixteen years later, we find that she had made the eventually fruitful decision as the value of the land rose, making the family rich.<\/p>\n
The conflict between\u00a0individual security versus greater purpose is evident. For example, we are introduced to the Divide as many families are quitting the pursuit of making it on the frontier to return to the city. While Alexandra could have decided to return to the city which would have resulted in a considerably easier life for herself, she picks the harder choice of working the land. We see the difficulty in finding purpose on the frontier on page 49 with Carrie Jensen, who had attempted suicide multiple times because she failed to see beyond the monotonous fields. Alexandra attributes her purpose to her brother, Emil: “he is going to have a chance, a whole chance; that is what I’ve worked for.”<\/p>\n
It will be intriguing to see the development of familial relationships within the Bergson family in the rest of the novel, as the characters grow more independent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first 50 pages of the novel introduces the reader to the Swedish Bergson family as well as characters of the Divide, a region of the frontier. Upon their father’s death, the Bergson siblings are faced with the decision to remain on the frontier tying their fate to the success of the land or to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-willa-cather-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}