Making Changes
Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! is a novel based in the outskirts of the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, and focuses on Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish-American whose father is slowly dying. His dying wish is for Alexandra to run the farm, along with her younger brother Emil , after he is gone. Many challenges and failures come about. Alexandra learns to grow crops, live on the land, and adapt. Which is a great accomplishment for having little prior knowledge of farm life, but turns the land to an enterprise. Through the dynamic character of Alexandra Bergson, Willa Cather expresses how even though people fear change, change benefits in ways that are unthinkable.
Willa Cather’s diction in this novel is very descriptive and…show more content… Cather uses foreshadowing in the part where Emil, the youngest of the siblings, had a best friend, Amedee, who he had lost due to appendix failure. He had it rough losing his closest friend. Giving readers foreshadowing that someone else will die in the time coming. On top of that Emil had a strong feeling for neighboring farm owner Marie , who is married to a man named Frank. Marie was not happy with her husband and became fond of Emil. Days before leaving for college Emil and Marie were alone by the church and had an intimate moment which led up to them kissing for the first time. Following, Emil stops by to bid farewell to Marie. After the thought of Emil leaving for quite a while, they start to savor their last moments together lost in each other. “When Frank got home that night, he found Emil’s mare in his stable”. (Cather 168). Reading that from the book gave readers the automatic thought that Frank knew something was going between Emil and Marie, which is dramatic irony.. Marie’s husband Frank wanders off looking for Marie. Frank stumbles upon a terrified Emil and Marie. Frank, enraged, shoots both Emil and Marie dead. Alexandra does happily marry her friend Carl after the death of Emil. Then, goes on with life despite the loss of her younger brother
