Conrad Richter Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Barbara Meldrum

Critical Essay by Barbara Meldrum

Conrad Richter's three novels of the Southwest provide us with provocative portraits of women on the frontier and at the same time suggest a feminine perspective on western achievement. Each novel focuses on a central female character whose story is told by a male narrator recalling the experiences of his boyhood and youth. The boy is in each instance a family relation of the man who is married to or closely associated with the leading female character. The boy thus provides a sympathetic but essentially external view of the woman: characterization is limited to what the boy knew, nuances of motivation remain mysteries, and the women emerge as essentially idealized portraits shaped by a man's nostalgia for a lost youth. Though such an approach may be frustrating for a reader interested in psychological probing of character, Richter's mode is eminently suited to portrayal of an essentially symbolic perception of Southwestern...
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