The conversation that occurs between Carl and Alexandra as\u00a0they are reflecting on their different stations in life after 16 years of foraging their own paths is very intriguing in the way they discuss their sense of freedom.\u00a0Freedom and the desire for it has been a constant theme in our discussion of the American dream so far. Carl and Alexandra’s contrasting opinions as to whether either of them have achieved the dream or not further shows the allusiveness of its\u00a0definition and the extent to which what it means to “be free” is\u00a0unique in some way to every individual. Alexandra responds to Carl calling himself a “failure” by insisting she would “rather have had [his] freedom than [her] land” (47), and later in the conversation admits that she “would rather have Emil grow up like that than like his two brothers” (48). Carl disagrees, sadly sharing his reality that “freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere” (47). For Carl, his dream is not complete without the strong sense of purpose and deep connection that Alexandra possesses in her life. Carl’s\u00a0ability to pursue whatever path he wants with minimal consequence comes with a price of feeling\u00a0detached from what really matters in life, family. Alexandra understands this yet still prefers Carl’s way of life for Emil, saying “we grow hard and heavy here. We don’t move as easily as you do, our minds get stiff” (48). Alexandra’s deep sense of purpose comes from her being born into circumstances which forced her to have great responsibility. What she wants for her younger brother is to have the freedom to choose his purpose and responsibilities, regardless of his roots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The conversation that occurs between Carl and Alexandra as\u00a0they are reflecting on their different stations in life after 16 years of foraging their own paths is very intriguing in the way they discuss their sense of freedom.\u00a0Freedom and the desire for it has been a constant theme in our discussion of the American dream so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","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\/73","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\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/english-1038-spring-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}