The Long Winter: An Introduction to Western Womanhood

Authors

Ann Romines, George Washington University

Date of this Version

1990

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly [GPQ 10 (Winter 1990): 36-47J .Copyright 1990 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.

Abstract

In many ways, The Long Winter is the central volume in Laura Ingalls Wilder's extraordinary sequence of seven Little House books. ¹ It is the most intense and dangerous of the novels, and it covers the shortest span of time, a single legendary seven-month winter. The Ingalls family has made its fullest commitment yet to one spot on the Dakota prairie. Although Pa yearns to start again in Oregon, Ma insists that they settle so the daughters can "get some schooling." Laura, the autobiographical protagonist, is approaching adulthood. This book, darkest of the series, does indeed provide her with powerful "schooling"-it is a sober and disquieting crash course in what it can mean to live out a female life on the Western prairie.