LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial
Literature
|
|
Amy Shanks
Willa Cather’s Depiction of America as a Land of Immigrants and
Transnational Migrants
My Research Alteration
While my original plan for the second posting was to further explore the
colonial-postcolonial relationship of
Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso Sea,
my interest was diverted by the connection I found with the research I was
doing in my Women’s Literature class. After receiving professor approval, I
decided to alter my research plan.
Part of my enthusiasm for this change of topic was rooted in the curiosity I
feel whenever I discover possible, unanticipated links between courses. My
fervor escalated because the link I found was with Willa Cather’s work, an
author I not only highly regard, but also one whom I hope to research more
extensively.
America as a Land of Immigrants
During my preliminary research, I came across the promising novel title:
Willa Cather and the Myth of American
Migration by Joseph Urgo. My excitement was swiftly deflated when my only
option for actually reading the book was to purchase it online. Unable to
procure a copy of Urgo’s work, I found several reviews summarizing his argument.
Linda Dunleavy’s book review “Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration”
delineates pertinent highlights from Urgo’s work. Her article was particularly
germane to the course because of its focus on America as a migrant country.
Dunleavy explains the crux of Urgo’s work, stating that it is “a great argument
for the pervasiveness of migration as an American core philosophy” (255). This
migratory consciousness directly related to ideas broached in our class
discussion. America is, and since European colonization has always been, a land
of movement; not only because it is primarily comprised of immigrants and
descendants of immigrants, but also because of the popular cyclical mentality of
reinvention that often necessitates a change of residence. According to the
article, Cather’s fiction exposes how America is uniquely situated in a position
where the country is “not contained by its past, it is just as over-determined
by its future...continual movement” (255). American mobility exists beyond a
literal level: “The imagination of America, unburdened by memory, can and must
go anywhere it wants” (255). This
statement relates to a specific observation in class discussion. Keaton
articulated the distinction of the United States and America, the former being
the physical area and the latter being an abstract ideal, and observed how both
levels foster the mobile mentality. Dunleavy expresses Urgo’s observation of how
Cather’s work captures complications that can arise for the transnational
migrant, stating, “there is little hope for immigrants whose memories of home
interfere with their ability to move on in the new world” (255). This dismal
observation led to an unfair prejudice that Prchal’s article later addresses.
Focusing on background influences of Cather’s work, Martha Carpentier’s article
“The Deracinated Self: immigrants, orphans, and the ‘migratory consciousness’ of
Willa Cather” couples well with Dunleavy’s insights on Urgo’s work. Carpentier
uses Janis Stout’s research to expose Cather’s vested interest in viewing
America as a land of mobility stating, “by the age of eleven Cather had
undergone two major displacements as her family migrated first to Nebraska and
then moved into the town of Red Cloud” (135). Her article postulates that this
personal experience had a significant impact on Cather’s writing, stating that
the displacement had “a ‘pervasive’ effect on her fiction in the ‘reoccurring
motifs of departure and return’ (12-13); therefore, when writing of immigrants,
Cather ‘wrote of herself covertly, in disguise’” (135).
Carpentier’s research was comprehensive, offering differing perspectives
on Cather’s depiction of the migrant experience in direct relation to the
transnational migrant (which will be addressed in the second portion of my
research posting).
The Transnational Migrant
In fear of misidentifying elements of transnational migrants, I wanted to first
research the definition because despite the numerous explanations and
discussions of it in class, I didn’t feel confident in my grasp of the term. The
course website provided a wealth of web links to aid my understanding.
Migration Information Fundamentals (www.migrationinformation.org) was a
particularly inviting webpage because it defined the transnational migrant in a
straightforward manner. Explaining the complicated experience of a transnational
migrant, the webpage defines the term while also describing the escalation of
transnational migration status, stating, “In
the 21st century, more and more people will belong to two or more societies at
the same time;” however, the site simultaneously acknowledges that
“transnational migration is not new... in the early part of the 1900s, European
immigrants also returned to live in their home countries or remained active in
the political and economic affairs of their homelands from their posts in
America.” Transnational migrants often experience diverging pulls because they
“work, pray, and express their political interests in several contexts rather
than in a single nation-state.” Unfortunately, this duality led to the
misunderstanding of the transnational migrant being a proud immigrant unwilling
to assimilate – a prevalent issue during the time of Cather’s writing.
In his article “The Bohemian Paradox: My Antonia and popular images of Czech
immigrants,” Tim Prchal articulates Cather’s bold depiction of Czech immigrants.
At a time when “the traits ascribed to Czech immigrants in popular discourse
included a determined resistance to assimilation” (3), Cather’s divergent,
positive “vision of the United States as a nation rich in cultural diversity”
(3) showed her depth of understanding the transnational migrant’s plight.
Retrospectively lauded for
"presenting Czechs and their efforts to resist assimilation in a positive light,
Cather made the idea of cultural pluralism more palatable to her original
readers, many of whom would have been hostile to such a stance” (4). Prchal
attributes Cather's empathy to her "familiarity with the actual Czech immigrants
she encountered during her years in Nebraska” (3). Using My Antonia as an
example of how Cather's writing demonstrated the "‘beautiful ways’ that result
from preserving cultural distinctiveness” (3), Prchal's article provided a good
balance of critique with relevant examples.
Martha Carpentier also observed Cather’s depiction of the transnational migrant
stating that her work is “fundamentally grounded in the dichotomy between
migration and homestead” (133), aligning with the Migrant Information
Fundamentals webpage’s definition. Carpentier uses Urgo’s coinage of the term
“Catherian ‘Great Divide’“ to articulate the torn experience of the
transnational migrant. Quoting Janis Stout, Carpentier reveals “’writing from a
conflicted sense of yearning toward both settlement and movement’” (134),
differing from Urgo’s view of Cather’s work as “privileging the traveler over
the settler” (134).
Willa Cather is an author I hold in high esteem, so discovering her connection
with the colonial-postcolonial course was a delightful surprise, as well as a
great segue for the research paper I am writing for my women’s literature
course. My next interest is in the
Norse mythological influences in Cather’s short fiction, so I’m trading off the
American myth to discover older, classical influences in her work. As my thesis
selection is dawning, I am feeling very comfortable with the idea of extending
my Cather research into a thesis proposal.
Works Cited
Carpentier, Martha C. "The deracinated self: immigrants, orphans, and the
'migratory consciousness' of Willa Cather and Susan Glaspell."
Studies in American Fiction 35.2
(2007): 131+. Literature Resource Center.
Dunleavy, Linda. "Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration."
Studiesin American Fiction 25.2
(1997): 255+. Literature Resource Center.
Prchal, Tim. "The Bohemian paradox: My Antonia and popular images of Czech immigrants." MELUS 29.2 (2004): 3+. Literature Resource Center. http://www.migrationinformation.org
