Literary style and themes Willa Cather

willa cather in mesa verde wilds, ca. 1915.

although cather began writing career journalist, made distinction between journalism, saw being informative, , literature, saw art form. cather s work marked nostalgic tone, subject matter , themes drawn memories of years on american plains. critics have charged cather being out of touch times , failing use more experimental techniques, such stream of consciousness, in writing. however, others have pointed out cather follow no other literary path own:

she had formed , matured ideas on art before wrote novel. had no more reason follow gertrude stein , james joyce, work respected, did follow her. style solves problems in interested. wanted stand midway between journalists omniscient objectivity accumulate more fact character notice , psychological novelist use of subjective point of view stories distorts objective reality. developed theory on middle ground, selecting facts experience on basis of feeling , presenting experience in lucid, objective style. cather s style not accumulative cataloguing of journalists, nor fragmentary atomism of psychological associations.

in 1920 essay on willa cather, h.l. mencken apologized having suggested cather talented inconsequential imitator of edith wharton. praised abandoning new england locale middle west of great immigrations. mencken describes antonia sudden leap forward cather. here novel planned utmost skill, , executed in admirable fashion. wrote. here, unless err gravely, best piece of fiction ever done woman in america.

the english novelist a. s. byatt observes each work cather reinvented novel form @ new human world. byatt identifies of cather s major themes rising , setting of sun, brevity of life, relation between dailiness , rupture of dailiness, moment when desire shall fail . particularly in frontier novels, cather wrote of life s terrors ... , beauties . exiled characters of henry james, author had great influence on cather, of cather s major characters live exiled immigrants, people trying make way in circumstances strange them . joseph urgo in willa cather , myth of american migration says cather felt connection between immigrants sense of homelessness , exile , own feelings of exile when lived on frontier. susan rosowski wrote cather first give immigrants heroic stature in serious american literature.