A Study On Home Consciousness In O Pioneers!

Willa Cather(1873-1947)was a famous American writer in the first half of the 20~thh century.Her novel One of Us won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.In her life,she wrote a total of twelve novels,two short stories,many essays and poems.Her work is best known for describing women and the pioneering life of early immigrants in the United States.O Pioneers!,published in 1913,is Cather's first successful work.Since its advent,the textual meaning of the novel has been constantly interpreted by scholars and critics of different eras.So far,the academic studies have explored and analyzed the writing techniques of the novels from the form to the content,as well as the feminism,the ecological thoughts and the geographical space embodied in the novels.With the development of the times and the changes in the social context,scholars have different understandings of the novel and its implications in the period of American social transformation.The new meaning of the text needs to be explored.Especially in modern society,in the context of the impact of the machine industry,materialism and consumer culture,it is of great significance to excavate the description of the original prairie and the strong sense of home in the novel.When Willa Cather was about nine years old,her family moved to a small Nebraska frontier town called Red Cloud that was populated by immigrant Swedes,Bohemians,Germans,Poles,Czechs,and Russians.The experience of migrating and the hybrid living environment made Cather pay her attention to the sense of home.Coincidentally,home consciousness and western novels are also hot topics in literary academic research in recent years.However,the research on the home consciousness of Cather's novels is not fully developed.This thesis is guided by humanistic geography,and it divides home consciousness in the novel into three parts:material home,social home and spiritual home.The harmonious nature,social behavior and ethical relationship contained in the home consciousness,and the spiritual world of the individual,the class culture of the group,the national language and other elements reflected in the novel are explored.The content on the study of material home focuses on the specific process of the prairie being reclaimed from the wilderness to the“Garden of Eden.”Through the description of the natural environment of the prairie,it elucidates the novel's nostalgia for the primitive environment before the industrial age,and also reflects the idea that human and nature coexist harmoniously.The social home of the text explores the relationship among social neighborhood and family members.In this part,the thesis analyzes the novel's description of the integration of the national culture of the community,and traces the root of the American“melting pot”culture.The study on spiritual home expounds the construction of characters'spiritual world.It specifically analyzes the continuation of the pioneering spirit and the national spirits of the America embodied in the novel and the praise of the female pioneering spirit.Through analysis,this thesis believes that O Pioneers!reflects Cather's thinking about home consciousness and reveals the importance of home consciousness in the spiritual construction of individuals and groups.