Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews June 6, 2023 May 30, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Think about the roles played by some of the important men in this novel: Emil Bergson and Frank Shabata, but also minor characters like Crazy Ivar and John Bergson. What can you say about their relationships with women? What about their approach to, and capacity for, romance? Their relationship to the land itself? How do these men's relationships differ from those of women, particularly Alexandra and Marie Shabata?
What do you make of Alexandra's resolution, late in the novel, to forgive Frank Shabata, and to petition for his official pardon? How does this decision reflect on Alexandra's, and the novel's, attitude towards sin and responsibility?
Compare Alexandra to some of the other pioneering heroines in American literature. How does she respond, for instance, to the tradition of the American woman as individual, and as social and moral pioneer that Hawthorne makes The Scarlet Letter's Hester Prynne to be? What do you think that Cather is saying in this novel about the social and intellectual spaces assigned and made available to women in American culture? How does Cather's attitude relate to Hawthorne's vision of women in American society?
Obviously, the physical terrain of the Nebraska prairies plays a tremendously important role in this novel. Think specifically about the relationship of the land to its settlers, and the fact that different characters read the same landscape in very different ways. How do they see the land, and how are their thoughts constructed? What is the relationship between the eternal land and the human (and hence mortal) settlers? Can humans efforts influence the land, or is it forever unchanging?
American settlers, and their ideologues in the east, had a term for what they felt was the American right to western land: Manifest Destiny. Ours is a culture that, even after more modern ideas led to a reconsideration of the idea of Manifest Destiny, continues, to a certain extent, to venerate our pioneer ancestors. How does this novel feel about the notion of the moral rights of the pioneer toward the land? How does the novel feel about the pioneers themselves, from the point of view of morality? Perhaps most importantly, how does the novel feel about destiny, the notion that individuals or groups are impelled towards certain ends and actions?
The 1890s, the decade in which much of the novel is set, was a politically tumultuous time for America's western states. Hurt badly by the drought of 1893, these states felt themselves ignored by the eastern elites. In response, the Populist Party was born, roaring onto the American electoral scene for the first time in 1896. Despite failure in the Presidential campaign, the Populist Party asserted itself briefly as an imposing force. How does this novel feel about politics? What does this attitude reveal about the way the novel approaches history and American culture? How, in a larger sense, are the larger movements in American history and culture reflected in the microcosm of Hanover, Nebraska? What can that tell us about O Pioneers! as a social and cultural novel?
What space exists between the novel's perspective and that of Alexandra? Does this novel ever disapprove of Alexandra? If so, how? What is the nature and significance of the novel's attitude towards Alexandra?
What is the novel's attitude toward religion and God? Think both of the novel's portrayals of organized religion, such as the bishop's coming to confirm local Catholic youths, and any instances of non-organized or informal religion or faith?. What, for example, is the role of Crazy Ivar's religious beliefs? Consider, in your response, both the social and the moral functions of religion and faith.
"Isn't it queer," ponders Carl Linstrum, "there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves." At the end of the novel, Alexandra finally responds to this idea: "You remember what you once said about the graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it is we who write it, with the best we have." What opinions about human agency and historical forces are being expressed here? How do they relate to each other? How do they relate to Alexandra's life story as depicted in the novel, and to the story of the settling of the West?
Cather's title, O Pioneers!, was taken from the Walt Whitman poem, "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" What can you say about the relationship between the novel and Whitman's attitude toward the American land and American society as expressed in his poems? What about the novel's idea of the individual's relationship to society, as compared to Whitman's?
Please wait while we process your payment