A Song Of The Pioneers

Willa Cather is one of the most famous American writers in the first half of the twentieth century,and renowned for “The Prairie Trilogy”,including O Pioneers!,The Song of the Lark and My Antonia.My Antonia is the most mature one in the trilogy,which is hailed as an eternal classic in the history of American literature.Set in Nebraska prairie in the Midwestern America from the end of the 19 th century to the beginning of the 20 th century,it tells the story of a crowd of European immigrants who exploit the western virgin soil,in which a lot of opposing factors,contradictions and conflicts are presented.Since its publication,literary critics have brought forward many kinds of interpretation concerning My Antonia,most of which are conducted from the following perspectives: the biographical criticism,the feminist criticism,the eco-criticism,the archetypal criticism and the cultural criticism.Although previous studies involved space and identity,the conflicts between man and nature,and the interrelationship between man,society and nature in the novel,few critics have comprehensively studied the novel from the perspective of binary opposition and probed into the thoughts of the writer.Hence,based on the previous studies,from the principle of binary opposition,this thesis intends to analyze the binary opposition between city and country,between humans and nature and between materialism and the pioneer spirit,which reveals the conflicts in the novel and discloses the writer’s proposal.The thesis is composed of three parts,including the introduction,the body part and the conclusion.The introduction part consists of a brief introduction to Willa Cather,My Antonia,and binary opposition as a principle applied in literary criticism.The body part,from the second chapter to the forth chapter,can be rendered as the most crucial part.It elaborates on three pairs of binary oppositions in detail,namely the binary opposition between city and country,between humans and nature and between materialism and the pioneer spirit.In three binary oppositions,city,humans and materialism are overwhelmingly defined as the positive and right one,whereas country,nature and the pioneer spirit generally present the negative and laggard images.However,either in Cather’s era or in modern society,country,nature and the pioneering spirit are equally important and even more important.Through the analysis of the novel,the thesis concludes that the novel constructs a real frontier life with the juxtaposition of contradictions,portrays a vivid picture of the society in the Midwestern America at the turn of the century.On the one hand,the pioneers have established peaceful homes on the prairie through hard work;on the other hand,the urbanization and materialism have a significant impact on the western pioneers.On the whole,Cather extols the countryside,encourages the return to nature,and eulogizes the pioneer spirit of immigrants.