The Emerging Voice

Willa Cather is quite a controversial figure in American literature. Though ranked as an important writer in America's literary development from the Romantic period to the Realist period, she is criticized as an escapist. The wide range of aspects manifested by Cather's works have given rise to diversified assessments about the writer by different literary schools, which lay critical stress on the aspects that are closely related to their studies. Divergent as they are in the exploration of the realistic and romantic elements from Cather's works, the realistic and romantic schools have reached an agreement in praise of the successful portrayal of the ideal Americans: industrious, moral, resourceful, passionate, sympathetic, etc. And they are exalted as the makers in the formation of this great nation. These two schools have both neglected Cather's identity as a female writer, who is a master in the creation of a group of vivid, great female pioneers. Until the latter half of 1980s, a school of critics headed by Cather's biographer O'Brien Sharon spared no efforts in seeking any trace that could justify Cather as a lesbian. Few critics have probed into Willa Cather from a feminist perspective, which partly results from Cather's public denial, partly from critics' neglect.On the basis of the research fruits achieved in Cather's studies, this thesis offers an original perspective in the interpretation and appreciation of Cather's two novels in light of feminist criticism and narratology. By a review of Cather's upbringing experience and literary career, it's proposed that Cather in the two novels revealed her feminist ideas in a revealing way. In opposition to a group of unsuccessful, frail, male characters;the positive female characters were depicted to subvert the patriarchal binary oppositions between the two genders. Androgyny is favored as an ideal state of being. Furthermore, an interdisciplinary approach: feminist narratology is applied in the analysis of the feminist consciousness that is in relation to the women writer's narrative strategies. Cather has always been hiding her feminist outlook in her lifetime. This thesis tends to dig out her emerging tendency with the assistance of new advancement in theoretical criticisms. Roughly, this thesis includes five chapters.Chapter one gives a general introduction to Cather's peculiar life experience and literary career. A brief literary review is offered in revealing the originality of this thesis.Chapter two traces the historical development of western feminist criticism with an introduction to the theoretical background and the related methodology, on which this thesis is based.Chapter three is the main body which is based on the Marxist feminist methodology. A borrowing of theoretical assumptions from the feminist critics Millett, Showalter, andWoolf is applied for the revealing of the oppressed condition and the rebellion of the female characters against patriarchal society as manifested by Cather's two novels: O,Pioneers! and My Antonia. In contrast to the frail, incapable male characters, the creation of a group of successful, antitraditional female pioneers is a deconstruction of the binary oppositions between the two genders. The dream of feminists: the harmony and fusion of the two genders is partly embodied by the androgynous characters from the two novels.Chapter four reinforces the arguments proposed in preceding parts by the employment of an analysis of the narrative strategies of the two novels. With an examination of the choice of narrators, the timing, Cather's hiding proclivity and trying efforts in the writing are justified from the subordinated status of women writers in a patriarchal society.Chapter five concludes the thesis by furthering the significance of Cather's writing in facilitating the realization of the feminist dreams: true equality between the two genders is a fusion or union of the two genders on the basis of communication. Cather, a humanist writer is worth further explorations.