Willa Cather

Willa Cather's stories are about her life in Nebraska. She grew up in Shenondoah Valley, Virginia (Meet). She moved to Red Could, Nebraska when she was nine (Meet). In Nebraska she learned about life on the prarie and it led her to write stories about it (Meet). She attended high school in Nebraska and participated in many of the activities at her school (Meet). She became known as a good writer throughout her school (Meet). She attended the University of Nebraska in 1891 (Meet). She paid for it by writing literary reviews that won state wide awards and recongination (Meet). After her graduation, she moved back east to Pittsburg (Meet). She started to edit fo magizines and start to write her own stories (Meet). Her work impressed writers from all over. One editor from New York liked her writings and he asked her to come over to and write for him (Meet).
Cather liked to write about her life on the prarie. This makes her a regionalist author. She talked about the area around her and it affected her writings imensly.
Regionalism is where an wuthor takes dielect from the area they live in and apply it to their writings (Campbell). In Willa Cather's story, "O' Pioneers" she talks about the harshness they have been going through living on the rough terrain of the west (Cather, Pioneer). It is a harsh environment out there for a pioneer. The weather in in accurate and they is never a promise of anything. Cather says, "the failure of corn crop made labor cheap" (Cather, Pioneer). This would hold true because if men do not have a job they are willing to mostly work for nothing because it would mean that they have at least a little money coming in. They did not complain like the workers out east working in factories. They knew the circumstances they would go through moving out to Nebraska and they are willing to face them head on. Cather's pervious life on the frontier changed the way she wrote her stories. Her writings "Reflect her memoriesof praire life, and many of early works focus on the harshness and isolation of pieoneers' life's" (Regionalism). Cather does this in her writing by telling the reader about a drought that has been goin through the west (Cather, Pioneer). This shows great regionalism because at this time, she is going through the drought herslef and she knows the land. Her story "A Wagner Manitee" is also regionalism. She starts out the begigining of the story with stating they are in Nebraska (Cather, Wagner). The story is about her aunt Francis and Uncle George moving out west after the Homestead Act is passed (Cather, Wagner). She tlaks about her aunt and uncle and their life before the move and after the move (Cather, Wagner). It shows great regionalism becuase it is showing how people who are just ocming to the area and are new how they react to the roughness of western life on the Great Plains. Cather's life influenced much of her writings and she move west changed how she writes.

Campbell, Donna M. "Regionalism and Local Color Fiction." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 20 Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. .

"Regionalism." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 488. Print.

Cather, Willa. "O' Pioneers." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 489. Print.


Cather, Willa. "A Wagner Manitee." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 521. Print.

"Meet Willa Cather." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 519. Print.