Great Plains Studies, Center for

 

Date of this Version

Fall 1984

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 4, No. 4, Fall 1984, pp. 245-63.

Comments

Copyright 1984 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

I want to explore with you my feelings about the polarity of light and shadow in Willa Cather's world and in my own experience as illuminated by that world. Carl Jung said, "Evil needs to be pondered just as much as good, for good and evil are ultimately nothing but ideal extensions and abstractions of doing, and both belong to the chiaroscuro of life. In the last resort there is no good that cannot produce evil and no evil that cannot produce good."

I won't take on evil as much as the deeper greys. I became more aware of them in the bright light of the Southwest. Death Comes for the Archbishop is the pivotal book in my work with Cather. The Professor's House comes closest to my daily life concerns, while Sapphira and the Slave Girl has the most disturbing hold on me. I'll refer to Cather's views on art and to a few ideas from other sources, but mostly I'll share with you my experience in the Cather world as a reader, a photographer, and someone interested in the idea of journey in her life.

Much that follows is very personal. My intention is to stir feelings and connections in relation to the range of material before us, through a personal journey, for all devoted readers of literature and of Willa Cather in particular. My Cather world includes my ongoing experiences with the writing, the places, my own photographs, and, most importantly, the people, be they scholars or those living in Cather places-or in the Cather spirit. This world gives my life a continuity as nothing else does; it is my most valued association, vast and warm like the Archbishop country of the Southwest, with its accompanying strange and somber shapes. In addressing this dark side, I believe we are honoring Cather's understanding of its power and enabling ourselves to be freer of that power over our lives.

Of course, much of life is ordinary. Even the paler greys in our daily lives can lead to larger considerations. My Cather journey was influenced by my own father, out of what I feel was his grey, shadow side. He frequently challenged what he called my desire for things to be "exciting." "Why should they be?" asked this solid Midwestern businessman of his daughter who had gone East to live in New York City. When he invited me and my camera to come with him to Cather's home town of Red Cloud, I had already felt the pull of home and return. My father's mother and Cather had been friends during their years at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He had collected first editions of her work and been involved with the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial. I wanted to explore my Nebraska roots and thought Cather's life and work could add romance to what I assumed was my more mundane past. Soon after that initial trip, my father, who also scorned "highfalutin ideas" in general and mine in particular, mentioned something about a Cather picture book being planned.

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