Qwiz5 Quizbowl Essentials – Willa Cather

Initially classified as a regional writer known for recounting life on the Great Plains, Willa Cather has been reassessed over the years and is now considered a canonical American writer. Cather wrote prolifically, producing novels, short stories, poems, and works of journalism. Although her works touch on many themes, Cather was always fascinated by the different manifestations of America’s frontier spirit. Read on and broaden your horizons regarding this famous author. 

By analyzing questions, you can see patterns emerge, patterns that will help you answer questions. Qwiz5 is all about those patterns. In each installment of Qwiz5, we take an answer line and look at its five most common clues. Here we explore five clues that will help you answer a tossup on Willa Cather. 

ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE

Cather’s first novel was 1912’s Alexander’s Bridge. The novel’s titular protagonist, construction engineer Bartley Alexander, suffers a crisis of conscience as he ponders leaving his wife Winifred for his British mistress Hilda Burgoyne. Alexander’s crisis is reflected in a professional disaster - the collapse of a bridge he had designed. 

O PIONEERS!

O Pioneers! was Cather’s first truly successful novel. Set in the prairie town of Hanover, Nebraska, the novel centers on the struggles of Alexandra Bergson to run a successful farm. Romantic relationships play an important role in the novel, with Alexandra undergoing a long and drawn-out relationship with Carl Linstrum. Her brother, Emil, engages in an adulterous liaison with Marie Shabata and is eventually killed by her jealous husband. Taking advice from unorthodox sources, such as a local man named Crazy Ivar, Alexandra manages to build a thriving farm and find true love. 

SONG OF THE LARK

Following O Pioneers is 1915’s The Song of the Lark, the second book in Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy. The Song of the Lark’s protagonist is a budding singer from Moonstone, Colorado named Thea Kronborg. Thea initially plans to be a pianist, but her teacher Mr. Harsanyi convinces her to work on her singing voice instead. Along the way Thea interacts with many memorable characters and has a tempestuous romantic affair with Fred Ottenburg. 

MY ÁNTONIA

The third work of Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, My Ántonia is narrated by Jim Burden, an orphan from Virginia who comes to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. The novel details Burden’s years-long friendship with Ántonia Shimerda, the daughter of Bohemian immigrants. The two endure many trials together, including the suicide of Ántonia’s father, a run-in with a giant rattlesnake, and the attempted rape of Ántonia by Wick Cutter. Despite these tribulations the novel ends on a happy note; Jim eventually becomes a lawyer and Ántonia marries Anton Cuzak, with whom she has 10 children. 

DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP

This novel, one of Cather’s last, tells the story of Bishop Jean-Marie Latour, his vicar Joseph Vaillant, and their efforts to establish a Catholic diocese in the New Mexico territory. There are other, peripheral narratives in addition to this central story that explore life in the American Southwest. Topics addressed include crime on the frontier, exemplified by the evil Buck Scales, the hardscrabble nature of life in the Southwest, and the treatment of native peoples. Latour offers a pointed critique of the genocidal actions of the US government and frontiersmen like Kit Carson. 

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Quizbowl is about learning, not rote memorization, so we encourage you to use this as a springboard for further reading rather than as an endpoint. Here are a few things to check out: 

• In Death Comes for the Archbishop Latour comments on The Long Walk of the Navajo, the forced deportation of the Navajo people from their ancestral lands.

• Cather fiercely guarded her privacy, but some of her correspondence remains. 

  
  

• The character of Thea Kronborg was based on a real-life opera diva!  Learn more about the life of Olive Fremstad. 

  
  

• Cather captured the challenges of the Nebraska frontier in her fiction; Solomon Butcher captured it through photography.

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