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"Seeking Is Finding": Willa Cather and Religion
Abstract
Willa Cather utlized autobiographical details in her works to an extent greater than many other authors. Consequently, any study of her life has proven invaluable to an understanding of her works. The detailed examination of her religious faith has been largely ignored, but it is extremely important, for her entire life was a search for religious truth and faith. That quest is implicit in most of her published works; it is explicit in her extant correspondence, especially that with Bishop George Allen Beecher. She was raised in a Baptist home and began testing that inherited faith even before leaving high-school. Her college writings show a dissatisfaction with conservative, fundamentalist Christianity of any stripe, yet they also give evidence of a longing for some kind of certain faith--an envy of those who are able to believe strongly. Her early post-college works evince her strong desire for a successful career in the world of art, at the expense of religious interest. However, with her first "plains novel," O Pioneers!, a strong religious theme returns to her writing and remains throughout her career. The Song of the Lark expresses her beginning doubt about the wisdom of sacrificing everything for a career. One of Ours is the novel in which she struggles wth the crisis in her search for faith, and immediately following its publication, she was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Her next novel, A Lost Lady, is free from any kind of religious turmoil and gives evidence of the resolution of her search. The Professor's House and My Mortal Enemy portray the vacuity and agony of those who have abandoned religious faith in favor of other goals. In Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock Cather displays the importance which Christiabity had for her; its dissemination brought about the civilizing and humanizing of the world. Her final novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, examines the effects that denominational differences have upon the individual lives of Christians dealing with moral and inter-personal problems. Her correspondence during the final years of her life reveals a devout, Christian person, still seeking for some understanding of the turmoil of the mid-twentieth century. She can be called a "Christian" writer, but her idea of "revealing God through art" is much more subtle than many more obvious "Christian" writers, and that subtlety may be a more lasting and effective witness.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
Bohlke, Landall Brent, ""Seeking Is Finding": Willa Cather and Religion" (1982). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8318649.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8318649