SOURCE: Fox, Maynard. “Symbolic Representation in Willa Cather's O Pioneers! Western American Literature 9, no. 3 (fall 1974): 187-96.

In the following essay, Fox explores the symbolism in Cather's O Pioneers!

Willa Cather by 1910 had determined to become a writer, as is evidenced by her work during the decade then just finished; but whether she was to be a poet, a journalist, a writer of short stories, or a novelist was not yet clear. She had published a number of stories of considerable maturity, a volume of poems (April Twilights, 1903), any number of critical articles and other journalistic essays; and had done extensive editorial work for McClures.

First, she had to determine who she was, what the Nebraska of her childhood and youth meant to her, and what forms best suited her genius. For example, “A Wagner Matinee” (Everybody's Magazine, March, 1904) and “The Sculptor's Funeral” (McClures, January, 1905) are more hardboiled than...