Furthermore, recognizing that her audience would not take an immigrant narrator seriously, Cather tactfully chose Jim, a native-born white male, to narrate the story. This is important as nativist readers during this time would be more open to hear ideas shared by white men, as they were thought to be superior and intellectually capable. Although controversial, Jim details the bold aspects of the immigrants’ character, describing the Hired Girls as “menaces to the social order. Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background” (Cather 74). Here Jim refutes the inferiority of the immigrants, in contrast suggesting that their qualities were superior to those of the native-born girls. This statement from a native-born male
