The first fifty pages of the novel are set, most prominently, in two starkly different landscapes. In the beginning of the novel, the Bergson family is portrayed as one that is forced to endure tremendous hardship. For example, “One winter [Bergson’s] cattle had perished in a blizzard. The next summer one of his plow horses broke its leg in a prairie-dog hole and had to be shot”(Cather, 8). Despite the initially barren agricultural seasons, the farm did cultivate a strong, wise, independent woman. After demonstrating John Bergson’s trust in his daughter, Cather tells, “Before Alexandra was twelve years old she had begun to be a help to him, and as she grew older he had become to depend more and more on her resourcefulness and good judgment”(9). Both Alexandra’s strong will and independence, along with her father’s trust in her, echoes Adams\u2019 claim that, \u201cThe old life was lonely and hard, but it bred strong individualism\u201d(Adams, 409).<\/p>\n
Later, the novel jumps 16 years in advance, and both the farm\u2019s physical and cultural landscapes have changed. Where the land was once crude and lifeless, now \u201cThe rich soil yields heavy harvests; the dry smoothness of the land make labor easy for men and beasts\u201d(Cather, 29). Further, Alexandra, with her newly acquired wealth, has also changed the layout of her house, \u201cThe table was set for company in the dining-room , where highly varnished wood and colored glass and useless pieces of china were conspicuous enough to satisfy standards of the new prosperity\u201d(Cather, 37). Although Alexandra\u2019s character has not completely shifted along with her newly acquired wealth, as can be exhibited in her protection of Ivar, it is hard to tell if the same can be said for Emil. In the coming readings, we shall see if Adams\u2019s prediction that, \u201c[The consumer], like the rest of us, thus appears to be getting into a treadmill in which he earns, not what he may enjoy, but what he may spend\u2026\u201d(Adams, 408) comes into fruition.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, if Cather is trying to critique the American Dream by showing the Bergson family\u2019s demise at the hand of their newly acquired wealth, then why is the reader not shown the 16 year interim? Although the abrupt nature of the change does call the reader to focus on the family\u2019s emotional change, could the transition period not too have provided ripe ground for criticism?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first fifty pages of the novel are set, most prominently, in two starkly different landscapes. In the beginning of the novel, the Bergson family is portrayed as one that is forced to endure tremendous hardship. For example, “One winter [Bergson’s] cattle had perished in a blizzard. The next summer one of his plow horses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","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\/68","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\/402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}