A Land-Ethic Interpretation Of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!

Willa Cather is one of the most important American writers in the 20 th century.As a prolific writer, prairie novels become one of the most distinctive features of Cather’s works. The Prairie Trilogy, O Pioneers!(1913), The Song of the Lark(1915)and My Antonia(1918), help establish Cather’s identity as a western writer. O Pioneers! is her first mature work which states the persevering and positive pioneering life concerning the first generation of European immigrants in great Nebraska prairie.The relationship between man and land is the chief subject of O Pioneers!.Echoing with Leopold’s land ethic, Willa Cather elevates the man-land relation to the ethical and moral level. Leopold puts forward the concept of land ethic in his masterpiece A Sand County Almanac(1949), and he expresses his ecological thoughts of land pyramid, conservation esthetic and land community. This thesis analyzes the man-land and interpersonal relationships in O Pioneers! from the perspective of Leopold’s land ethic, pointing out the defects of modern ecological education and the absence of ethical obligation in conservation.Chapter One briefs Willa Cather and O Pioneers!. The literature review and thesis structure are also introduced in this chapter. Chapter Two gives a simple introduction to Leopold and concentrates on his ecological thoughts such as land pyramid, conservation esthetic and land community. Chapter Three narrates human’s distorted attitudes toward land. Most human-beings regard land as property to dispose it at their own wills. Long-term oppression breaks the natural balance of land pyramid and brings damage to both man and land. Chapter Four depicts contradictory emotion of pioneers to the land. They appreciate the beauty of land while neglecting their intrinsic value, without realizing the destruction to land. Chapter Five accounts pioneers who consider themselves as a common member in community. Cather sets forth that only when we lift land protection to the level of moral consciousness can we make conservation a kind of responsibility but not requirement. Conclusion summarizes on one hand the development of land ethical thoughts and on the other hand criticizes the distorted relationship forming under the temptation of utilitarianism and individualism.