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"All the World Seemed Touched with Gold": Willa Cather and One of Ours
Abstract
One of Ours, published in 1922, won the Pulitzer Prize, but only after it received mixed reviews, ranging from "amazingly rich" to "deadly dull." Throughout her life, Cather considered it her favorite although critics liked it least of her novels. The disparity between critical versus public response and between its official devaluation versus its writer's high regard prompted me to explore One of Ours' "story." Employing an historical approach, this dissertation attempts to illuminate and clarify One of Ours by locating it as an historical element, by studying its sources, and by tracing its composition. Using a biographical approach, I trace Cather's life as it relates to the novel, then broadening the questions of historical criticism, I interpret how the novel reflects the historical forces that influenced it. My historical approach reflects principles of new historicism. The novel invites the questions of the feminist critic, exploring the role of gender in its composition and reception. Briefly touching on psychoanalytical criticism, I suggest avenues in which Claude's, as well as others', actions and motives parallel those of Cather and the American culture. Because the war defined much of American culture during the years portrayed in the novel, I interpret ways in which culture influenced both the novel's plot and its reception. By examining Cather's development of stories of male duality, beginning with Alexander's Bridge, continuing through four stories in Youth and the Bright Medusa, and followed by The Professor's House, I place One of Ours within Cather's oeuvre. In a broader context, I show how One of Ours fits into an American literary context of post-war novels, specifically The Age of Innocence and Babbitt, that examine changes in American society immediately after the war. Finally, I move to a pedagogical approach as I relate my use of the novel in the classroom and ways in which students develop their critical responses to it.
Subject Area
American literature|Womens studies|Biographies
Recommended Citation
Faber, Rebecca J, ""All the World Seemed Touched with Gold": Willa Cather and One of Ours" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9538619.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9538619