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Carving an identity and forging the frontier: the self-reliant female hero in Willa Cather's O Pioneers!(Critical essay)(Character overview)

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From: Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of EnglishStudies
Date: 20050101
Author:Quawas, Rula

ABSTRACT

Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers! bridges the gap between gender and heroism. In this regional novel, Cather captures the essence of the heroic pioneer, the noble American spirit taming the West, in a female character. She creates a woman hero who has qualities and actions that make her break the parameters of gender roles. Alexandra Bergson is a female hero who shifts the reader's perceptions of heroism, greatness, and nobility. She is a woman who embodies all the attributes admired in the finest of male characters in the American literary canon when faced with ...

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