Alexandra Bergson And Marie Shabata As The

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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for
Summer 2002
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Douglas W. Werden
West Texas A & M University
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Werden, Douglas W., ""She Had Never Humbled Herself" Alexandra Bergson And Marie Shabata As The
"Real" Pioneers Of O Pioneers!,/i>" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 2324.
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"SHE HAD NEVER HUMBLED HERSELF"
ALEXANDRA BERGSON AND MARIE SHABATA AS THE
"REAL" PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS!
DOUGLAS W. WERDEN
Willa Cather's 0 Pioneers! (1913) has tradi domestic plots, American migration, and
tionally been read within the twin contexts women leaving the home. 2 However, if we con
of Cather's pioneering childhood and her sider 0 Pioneers! in relation to the gender role
nostalgic reminiscences that glorify the lives redefinitions of Cather's adult life, we discover
of prairie settlers. These critics interpreted a work that is not primarily about homestead
the novel in light of Walt Whitman's poem of ing pioneers, but rather about two women who
the same name in Leaves of Grass, which cel are pioneers in crossing socially constructed
ebrates the conquering American pioneer gender barriers. Both Alexandra Bergson and
who "civilizes" the land for production.! Marie Shabata overturn the presupposition
More recent critics have contextualized it that farm women are necessarily subordinate
within her family history, agricultural history, farmwives who support their husbands by
working in the domestic sphere. As a woman
farmer, Alexandra Bergson is a superior man
ager of her land, money, workers, and ex
tended family. Alexandra's movement in the
novel is from an initial rejection of traditional
KEY WORDS: Willa Cather, new woman, 0 Pioneers!, women's roles to an exploration of how she
pioneer, spousal abuse, woman farmer ca~ be a woman in a dominant position and a
family woman simultaneously, while Marie's
movement is from a farm woman who em
Douglas W. Werden is assistant professor of English at
bodies contemporary ideals of women's roles
West Texas A & M University. He researches literature
and rural life and has written on such authors as Hamlin to rejecting them because of their oppres
Garland, 20ra Neale Hurston, Linda Hasselstrom, siveness. Marie Shabata acknowledges that
and Judy Blunt. Currently he is preparing a book on her marriage is not emotionally fulfilling, re
the narratives of women homesteaders.
sists her husband's verbal and physical abuse,
and seeks personal fulfillment outside mar
[GPQ 22 (Summer 2002): 199-215] riage. Each woman subverts traditional late-
199
200 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002
nineteenth-century gender perceptions by es In the novel Cather uses the term "pio
chewing the role of supporting a male regard neer" only twice, and both times it applies to
less of the consequences. In doing so, each of the aging generation that is virtually elided
these women appropriates traditional male from the text. When Emil cuts grass in the
roles and explores pioneering possibilities for Norwegian graveyard, he is "not thinking
women's lives. about the tired pioneers over whom his blade
glittered" (40). Many of the "pioneers" are
THE PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS! dead and, at twenty-one, Emil has only shad
owy memories of pioneering life, which is
The American "pioneer" usually refers to "among the dim things of childhood and has
those at the leading edge of American migra been forgotten in the brighter pattern life
tions whether frontiersman, forester, moun weaves today" (40). The sea of native prairie
tain man, miner, overland trail venturer, grasses has disappeared, replaced by "a vast
prospector, gold rusher, or homesteader. These checkerboard, marked off in squares of wheat
people are initiators, originators, and forerun and corn; light and dark, dark and light" (39).
ners preparing the way for "civilization." Ety Telephone wires, painted farmhouses, weather
mologically the word is derived from foot vanes, steel windmills, and red barns are all
soldiers who "march with or in advance of an markers of "industrial agriculture."7 The farm
army or regiment, having spades, pickaxes, etc. ers have transformed the region so radically
to dig trenches, repair roads, and perform other that John Bergson would not have recognized
labours in clearing or preparing the way for the country if he could have risen from his
the main body."3 Within Cather's novel, genu grave. The second time Cather uses the term
ine homesteading pioneers are curiously ab "pioneer" she reinforces the idea that pioneers
sent. are gone. The narrator comments that "A pio
Homesteading is finished on the Divide, neer should have imagination, should be able
except for the "the rough \;ountry across the to enjoy the idea of things more than the
county line" near Old Ivar's homestead (18).4 things themselves" (25). Such adventuresome
The Bergsons were pioneers of this region who spirit is present in Alexandra, Emil, and
staked and "proved up on claims," but when Marie but is certainly absent in Lou and Os
the novel opens they have accumulated the car who are conventional, unenterprising
wealth of a debt-free section of land (640 maintainers of the status quo. Cather's title is
acres). This is a significant acreage consider clearly not referring to historical settlers of
ing that the government census of 1890 the plains. Instead, she invites us to recognize
claimed the average Nebraskan farm was only that Alexandra Bergson and Marie Shabata
190.1 acres.s The novel begins with the death are pioneers of a new womanhood in opposi
of the family's founding pioneer, and most of tion to more conventional early-twentieth
the novel transpires twenty-seven years after century representations of women. Alexandra
the Bergsons initially homesteaded their land. and Marie both seek freedom from society's
Mrs. Bergson compares droughts from early constricting, prescriptive definition of a
pioneer days to the current water shortage and woman's traditional role, especially that of a
describes their predicament as less arduous farm woman who supports and serves a male.
than those the family faced when they first In striving for personal and economic au
arrived (31). The novel's main characters are tonomy, Alexandra and Marie each redefine
second-generation settlers who do not create a nineteenth-century American farm woman's
houses out of the wilderness, but like farmers role.
in American agrarian novels they steadily Cather was not the first to link the "pio
work to improve the land, the crops, the ani neer" concept and the women's movement.
mals, and their fortune.6 In the popular literary magazine Punch8 (10
THE "REAL" PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS! 201
November 1894), an unknown author adapted grants women's suffrage. To emphasize their
Walt Whitman's poem "0 Pioneers" as a mo pioneer feminist roles, the matriarch of these
tivational exhortation to the "Pioneers Club" women has on her parlor wall a picture of
whose membership consisted of "strenuous lady Susan B. Anthony, a pioneer in the nine
champions, all extremely up to date" (1. 7): teenth-century women's movement.
"artists, actresses, singers, writers, journalists, We also find evidence of Cather's political
speakers, and temperance workers" (11. 21-23 ).9 awareness of gender-role "pioneering" in My
The poem celebrates the spirit of Whitman's Antonia (1918): Book 4 is entitled "The Pio
pioneers and applies it to women, exhorting neer Woman's [singular] Story," but none of
them to fight for freedom from constricting its four chapters is about traditional pioneer
Victorian gender roles and for personal au women. A "pioneer" woman does tell a story
tonomy. Their weapons are not Whitman's in book 3, but an interpretation that covers
pistol and ax, but the "eyeglass" (education) all four books would be to understand the title
and the "cycle" (physical strength): 10 as also referring to woman pioneering gender
roles. Cather treats three daughters of immi
We primeval fetters loosing, grant farming pioneers who work in town to
We our husbands taming, vexing we and support their families; Tiny, Lina, and Antonia
worrying Mrs. GRUNDY, are turn-of-the-century "working girls." The
We our own lives freely living, we as first chapter describes the success of Tiny
bachelor-girls residing, Soderball, who started a boardinghouse in
Pioneers! 0 Pioneers! Seattle and later joined the Alaskan gold rush.
She became one of the founders of Dawson
The author recognized the fighting, goal-ori City, where she started a hotel, was deeded a
ented, unflagging spirit of Whitman's poem as claim, sold the hotel, worked her claim, specu
the same spirit needed for the battle against lated in land, and returned to San Francisco
the fetters of patriarchy. This is especially with a fortune. The second chapter is about
apparent at the conclusion, where the anony Lena Lingard, who moved to San Francisco
mous author wryly notes that most of and developed a fine dressmaking business into
Whitman's poem needs little adaptation to a comfortable living. Antonia is the final "pio
apply to the women's movement (see Appen neer woman" represented in book 4. Cather's
dix). It is not possible to know if Cather was narrator praises her decision to bear and raise
familiar with this poem, but she understood her child without shame. Instead of marrying
that the women's movement saw its struggle and keeping house, she plows fields, herds
for freedom as a pioneering activity. The cattle, and works uncomplainingly on the
October 1909 issue of McClure's published farm even on the day she silently delivers her
while Cather worked there as an editor, sug daughter alone in a room behind the stove. By
gests that she was familiar with the use of "pio grouping these diverse herstories under the sin
neer" in relation to the women's movement. gular heading "The Pioneer Woman's Story,"
It contains a short story by Helen Green en Cather invites the reader to see commonality
titled "Pioneer Goes Suffragette."ll The term among the narratives, to understand their sto
pioneer in the title refers to the town of Pio ries as those of pioneer women. Each woman
neer, Idaho, where the story is set, but more rejects society's traditional roles for women:
importantly it applies to women living beyond Tiny and Lina are business entrepreneurs;
traditional women's roles, including a mother Antonia is a single mother, farm laborer, and
who settled on a plains ranch, a daughter from farm manager. None of these women depends
a mountain gold-mining camp, and women upon a man for economic support; rather, they
from a traveling burlesque show. These women all rely upon a supportive female community.
are the first female voters in Pioneer after Idaho Cather used the term "pioneers" to include
202 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002
independent women in My Antonia in 1918 The government censuses report that be
and made the same rhetorical connection five tween 1875 and 1900 approximately 250,000
years earlier in 0 Pioneers! women operated their own farms.14 The 1900
census counted just over 300,000 women as
ALEXANDRA BERGSON AS A GENDER farm owner-operators, tenants, or "foremen."
ROLE "PIONEER" By 1920 the number had dropped to just over
265,000, yet "farmer" was still the sixth larg
The novel's initial conflict is Alexandra's est money-making occupation for American
struggle to establish herself as an independent women. IS The census defined "women farm
woman farmer. The traditional role of Ameri ers" as women who own, co-own, manage, or
can women on the farm is as "farm women" co-manage a farm. This excludes not just
that is, women living on a farm but not farmwives but paid or unpaid women farm la
involved in farming activities, except when borers who toil on the "home farm" or "work
they are needed. Typically, "farm woman" and out."16 The census's distinction shows that
"farmw ife" are synonymous terms, revealing a landownership, level of authority, and deci
prevailing assumption that a farm woman is a sion-making-not tasks performed-distin
domestic appendage to the male farmer. The guish a woman farmer.
terms suggest an inherent subordination that From the start, Alexandra occupies a tradi
places the farmer at the defining center of the tional male position of responsibility and
woman's life. Deborah Fink claims, "that power. Before her father's death, Alexandra
women would enter farming as appendages or functions as the head of the family, assigning
wives of farmer husbands was taken for granted her brothers' daily work, exemplified when
that no explicit discussion of the fact was nec she sends Lou and Oscar to the river to cut
essary."12 Government and private farm publi wood. The dying Mr. Bergson makes her po
cations actively exalted the position of sition official, though normally the seven
farmwife in order to encoumge women to seek teen-year-old Lou or the nineteen-year-old
and accept a role that called for long arduous Oscar would inherit the responsibility for the
hours of physical labor to support a man. In family's welfare since it was often given to
an analysis of a 1937 publication the Nebraska sons as young as five or six. Mr. Bergson de
Farmer, Deborah Fink notes how this influen viates from tradition by bestowing the respon
tial magazine constantly encouraged women sibility for the family's welfare on a woman
to get married: because of her "resourcefulness," "good judg
ment," and "strength of will" (12-13). Know
No mention was made of the possibility ing the controversial nature of his decision,
that an educated woman who could sup he makes his sons promise on his deathbed to
port herself might choose not to marry .... be guided by Alexandra's management, but
If farms needed married women, then in doing so he also lays the foundation for a
women must understand the importance of sibling rivalry exacerbated by the tension be
marriage. They must not tarry in indeci tween Alexandra's managerial skills and new
sion but marry when they could.!} ideas and her brother's physical labor that
implements her ideas.
However, Alexandra appropriates the position The novel's brewing gender conflict reaches
of "farmer." The occupation of "farmer" and its climax when Lou and Oscar attempt to
the term "farmer" are both traditionally un deny Alexandra's managerial role and claim
derstood as applying only to males, like scien to be the family's "real" farmers. In a devious
tist or mechanic, yet women farmers have bit of revisionist history, Lou argues that he
always existed. and Oscar were always in control of the farm
THE "REAL" PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS! 203
operation and allowed Alexandra to adminis potential marriage partner because they feel
ter it just to humor her: he is too young for her and only after
Alexandra's money. Lou and Oscar are afraid
This is what comes of letting a woman that they and their children will permanently
meddle in business ....W e ought to have lose claim to Alexandra's money and farms,
taken things into our own hands years ago. especially the "Bergson homestead." Invok
But she liked to run things, and we hu ing patriarchal familial claims, Oscar repeats,
mored her. ... Oh, now, Alexandra, you "The property of a family belongs to the men
always took it pretty easy. Of course we of the family because they are held respon
wanted you to. You liked to manage round, sible, and because they do the work" (85).
and we always humored you .... But, of This view that Alexandra's property is at their
course, the real work always fell on us. disposal is more insidious than their attempt
Good advice is all right, but it don't get to denigrate her labor because it attacks the
the weeds out of the corn. (85) foundation of her freedom-her economic
autonomy. Alexandra recognizes her broth
Alexandra points out how crucial her deci ers' attempt to control her personal relation
sions were for the farm's success and reminds ships, devalue her work, and control her
Lou of the many major managerial blunders economic base (her land). She refuses to tol
that she averted. To this, Lou mumbles, "That's erate it: "All that does n't (sic) concern any
the woman of it; if she tells you to put in a body but Carl and me. Go to town and ask
crop, she thinks she's put it in" (86). The men your lawyers ... the authority you can exert by
of the family patronize her, arguing that physi law is the only influence you will ever have
cal exertion is essential to all farm labor and over me again" (86). She terminates her rela
denigrating Alexandra's mental work. More tionship with her brothers and even attends
important, Lou challenges her capacity to do another church, so she will not have to see
"real" work. However, Lou and Oscar know them. Thus she asserts that as a woman farmer
farming as a tradition and haven't begun to and a family member, she will make her own
understand farming as a business. Social Sci decisions and be free of traditional gender roles
entists Sonya Salamon, Ann McKey, and Keim where males hold sway over family decisions.
Salamon, in their article "Land Ownership and Despite Lou and Oscar's attempts to deny
Women's Power in a Midwestern Farming Alexandra's success as a woman farmer, the
Community," distinguish the farmer from oth community recognizes and admires her farm
ers on a family farm: "A real farmer makes the knowledge and skills. As a young girl,
crucial decisions about when to plant, harvest Alexandra knew more about horses than their
or sell and assumes the full responsibility for neighbor Mr. Lindstrum and helped him let
those decisions because he 'takes the risk.' "17 the wind out of a colicky horse. Whenever
Decision-making and active responsibility for he was uncertain, Mr. Lindstrum sought
the farm's well-being are the very roles that Alexandra's advice: "I wonder what the
Alexandra performs, such as installing a wind Bergsons are going to do about that? I guess I'll
mill, building a silo, investing in land, plant go and ask her" [my emphasis] (27). Mr.
ing alfalfa, and planting wheat. This reflects Lindstrum knows that Alexandra is the
post-pioneering agriculture where land is no Bergson family farmer. The townsmen also
longer conquered to provide sustenance but respect Alexandra, as she blushingly acknowl
carefully managed to provide a living. IS edges: "The men in town, at the banks and the
As the conversation progresses, it becomes county offices, seem glad to see me." She mod
clear that their purpose is also to limit her estly claims that the reason is "it is more
freedom by rejecting Carl Lindstrum as her pleasant to do business with people who are
204 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002
clean and healthy-looking" (68), but she uge for Mrs. Lee, whom she invites for a yearly
knows that their liking is also due to the busi weeklong visit. Mrs. Lee enjoys the license
ness she can bring them. Alexandra breaks that Alexandra gives her: speaking Norwe
society's gendered perceptions that women gian all day, wearing a nightcap, sleeping with
were neither to be business administrators nor windows shut, going to the stables in farm
to perform tasks in a dominant position. Her boots, and drinking brandy before bed.
challenge to these boundaries provides a pio Alexandra also nurtures the young Swedish
neering route for other women farmers-farm girls who do the housework. "It was to hear
ing with the mind instead of with the body. them giggle that she kept three young things
She makes her family prosperous through in in her kitchen" (44). Cather notes that she
telligent farm leadership, long-term planning, could have performed the work herself if nec
and land speculation-not through the physi essary, but she never writes about her partici
cal labor that dominates most pioneering nov pation in these domestic rituals. Nowhere
els.19 does Cather allow Alexandra to do household
After Alexandra's conflict with her broth labor, thus avoiding identifying her heroine
ers, she needs a supportive community, so she with the women writer's tradition of domestic
expands her exploration of traditional women's ritual. 20 Instead, Alexandra hires young women
gender roles. Her first role is that of mother/ to perform these tasks, but she also revels in
guardian to her youngest brother, Emil. After their companionship: "These girls, with their
their mother's death, Alexandra cares for him, long letters from home, their finery, and their
building a large new house on the homestead love-affairs, offered her a great deal of enter
solely so Emil can learn about life beyond farm tainment, and they were company for her when
ing. Although she encourages Emil to attend Emil was away at school" (44). The Swedish
college, her deeper concern is for her brother's hired girls give Alexandra a surrogate family
happiness: "He shall do whatever he wants and proximity to the world of romance. She
to .... He is going to have a chance, a whole lives vicariously through them, observing their
chance; that's what I've w~rked for" (60). flirtations and joking about marrying them off.
When Emil is on vacation from university, he Alexandra also has six male hired hands who
returns to her home, not to Oscar's or Lou's, also appreciate her efforts to create a support
because her house is the one in which he was ive home. Comfortable at last in her support
raised. Alexandra treats Emil as her son, and ive community, economic freedom, and social
Emil looks to her as a mother figure, talking to prominence, Alexandra oversees both her
her about his dreams for homesteading, study domestic and agricultural spheres while offer
ing law, and visiting Mexico. ing support to her employees.
Alexandra expands her supportive group Alexandra explores the role of marriage
beyond relatives by creating a community with cautiously because it traditionally implies
herself as the household matron. When Old subordination. Unlike many farm women,
Ivar loses his claim, "Alexandra took him in, Alexandra does not marry for economic or
and he had been a member of her household personal security; she has these freedoms be
ever since" (45). She gives him a job caring fore marriage. As a woman farmer, her posi
for her stock, invites him to live in the house, tion is incompatible with the traditional role
allows him to choose to sleep in the barn, and of "farmer's wife," a role of subordination she
protects him from the community. When fears she must assume if she marries a farmer.
neighbors pressure her to have him commit Therefore, Alexandra can only accept a hus
ted to an asylum, Alexandra refuses: "I am still band outside the agricultural community. In
running my own house, and other people have her relationship with Carl Lindstrum, the pio
nothing to do with either you [Ivar] or me" neering Alexandra offers him the unconven
(47). Alexandra also provides a periodic ref- tional role of a "farmer's husband," which
THE "REAL" PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS! 205
leaves her secure in her positIOn as "the MARIE SHABATA AS A GENDER-RoLE
farmer." Defying another gender role, she pro PIONEER
poses marriage to Carl Lindstrum because she
wants to deepen the happiness that she has As a child and as a woman, Cather read and
found in his friendship: identified with male literary heroes full of self
determination, self-possession, power, and
I don't need money. But I have needed you autonomy.21 She reveled in the romance of the
for a great many years .... People have to self-assertive individual whose personal force
snatch at happiness when they can, in this could make a difference.22 Both in fiction
world. It is always easier to lose than to and in life, Cather disliked the "identification
find. What I have is yours, if you care of personal fulfillment with a self-indulgent
enough about me to take it. (92) romanticism."23 Therefore, she reviled novels
that celebrated a woman's unquenchable de
Far from a spontaneous declaration of passion, sire for a man's love, whether it was the nine
Alexandra's thoughtful proposal reflects her teenth-century American domestic novels or
desire for happiness through intimacy with the late-nineteenth-century British sensation
another person who understands her but will alist fiction.24 She despised any story that
not limit her. Later, when Carl and Alexandra depicted women as "victims of over-idealiza
do decide to marry, he realizes that there will tion of love," the exact words she used to cri
be no economic dependency nor forced obli tique Kate Chopin's The Awakening and
gations in such a union. Alexandra will keep Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. 25 She said
her farms because, as she tells him, "There is a that these latter two stories "demand more
great peace here, Carl, and freedom" (158). romance out of life than God put into it."26
o
This freedom lies not only in her spiritual com Pioneers! is a correction to such crippling
munion with nature and the land but also in excesses. Alexandra and Carl's relationship,
economic self-sufficiency; with the farm, as well as Marie's life, reveal that marriage
Alexandra will always have a resource for eco and romantic love need not be the all-con
nomic survival and will never be financially suming goals of a woman's existence. 27 Instead,
dependent. Her inveterate friendship evolves Marie finds love to be only one of a multitude
into a bond that suggests Cather's own prefer of a woman's needs.
ence for pragmatic, nonsentimental alliances As a child, Marie seems to embody and
over intensely romantic ones. validate several romantic cliches. She is a cute,
Alexandra Bergson is a feminist pioneer pampered doll who precociously chooses the
throughout the novel; she breaks traditional recipient of her affections. As a teenager, her
gender boundaries by becoming a successful courtship and marriage are like pages from a
woman farmer, creating a nurturing, support dime romance novel: Frank, the handsomest,
ive household around her, proposing to her most eligible bachelor in the territory pro
future husband, and asserting her right to pos~s to her, only to have her father oppose
maintain her land. Like Alexandra, Marie the union and exile her to a convent in St.
Shabata also revises traditional gender bound Louis. But as soon as she is of legal age, they
aries, but unlike Alexandra, Marie initially elope. Mr. T ovesky resigns himself to their
adopts the traditional servile role of a farm wife. marriage and buys them a farm as a wedding
Her resultant suffering reveals the inadequa gift. At the beginning of their marriage, Marie
cies of romance myths, happily-ever-after adores Frank and cares for nothing but him;
marriages, and domestic submission. Finally, however, the fairy-tale romance is short-lived.
Marie's search for emotional fulfillment and Frank wants a "slave," who will feed his ego
self-respect propels her to escape an abusive by "admir[ingJ him abandonedly," and at the
spouse. start of their marriage Marie adopts this role
206 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002
(114). But Marie begins to mature and wants forced to farm for a living when he had aspired
something different while Frank doesn't: Marie to a life of leisure. Battered women have de
says, "I've got to remember that Frank is just scribed their husbands in a similar way:
the same now as he was then .... And now I
pay for it" (119). As she understands herself Though [abusers] may be terrifying, they
and Frank more, she realizes that she is not often have about them an aura of helpless
the type of woman Frank should have mar ness, fear, inadequacy, and insecurity. The
ried; she is much too outgoing and indepen battering husband is likely to be a "loser" in
dent: "Frank's wife ought to be timid, and she some basic way. He is probably angry with
ought not to care about another living thing himself and frustrated by his life ... [and
in the world but just Frank! I didn't when I has] feelings of inadequacy and low self
married him, but I suppose I was too young to esteem,3l
stay like that" (102). Marie knows that her
sanity demands that she resist subsuming her Frank is frustrated and insecure, not merely
personality in her husband's. Her world must because of his lot as a farmer but because he
no longer revolve around Frank and his needs: has always felt that other farmers failed to
appreciate his innate superiority (61). "[Frank]
The spark of her life went somewhere else, felt sorry for himself" (174) because he be
and [Frank] was always watching to sur lieved he had lowered himself to till the soil.
prise it. He knew that somewhere she must His mother in the Old Country was a hard
get a feeling to live upon, for she was not a working woman farmer, but in America,
woman who could live without loving. He
wanted to prove to himself the wrong he He was easily the buck of the beer-gardens
felt. What did she hide in her heart? Where ... [and] set all the Bohemian girls in a
did it go? (114) flutter ... [with] his silk hat and tucked
shirt and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves
Frank senses Marie's increasing personal au and carrying a little wisp of a yellow
tonomy and her growing resistance to his au cane .... He had a way of drawing out his
thority. He has delusions about her fidelity, cambric handkerchief slowly, by one cor
suspecting that other men covet his three most ner, from his breast-pocket, that was mel
valuable possessions: "his farm and his horses ancholy and romantic in the extreme. (73)
and his pretty wife" (61), so he fires the hired
man. Since Marie is friendly with everyone Therefore, when he is forced to farm to sup
and everyone loves her, Frank's jealousy be port his wife, he feels ill-suited, degraded, and
comes what Donald Dutton calls "conjugal defeated. Frank's exasperation increases when
paranoia," an obsessive fear characterized by he sees Marie's easy adaptation to and enjoy
delusions of sexual infidelity by one's spouse, ment of the farm: "He wanted his wife to re
which is a common characteristic of spousal sent that he was wasting his best years among
abusers.28 Frank fits many of the personality these stupid and unappreciative people; but
traits and emotional characteristics associated she had seemed to find the people quite good
with the type.29 In addition to this conjugal enough" (138). Alexandra recognizes Frank's
paranoia, his emotional volatility, desire to thinly disguised self-contempt and observes
control Marie, exasperation with his current that, "to get on with [him] you've got to make
life, reliance on alcohol, and misuse of fire a fuss over him and act as if you thought he
arms all conform to characteristics of spousal was a very important person all the time, and
abusers as described by many psychologists.3D different from other people" (61). He wants
Like many abusive husbands, Frank feels the same admiration he had when he was a
frustrated professionally. He resents being young city dandy.
THE "REAL" PIONEERS OF 0 PIONEERS! 207
Spousal abusers tend to be emotionally tain control over the other person," an obses
volatile, suffering "intermittent explosive sive need that increases with the diminishing
disorders."32 As J. E. Alcock notes, "The abuser of other forms of control over their world (so
is often impulsive and unable to control emo cial, economic, sexual).35 Frank holds that the
tions. Emotions rapidly build to an extreme, male is the dominant figure in the family and
although sufficient control is generally main that his authority should be unquestioned.
tained to avoid inflicting serious permanent Therefore, when Marie seeks companionship
injury or death. "33 Other psychologists describe outside their marriage, Frank seeks to rein her
this behavior as rooted in interpersonal and in; he fires Jan Smirka, is hostile toward her at
intrapersonal stress conflicts, and in the fail church, and berates her for befriending Mrs.
ure of anger management skills.34 Throughout Hiller. Frank knows that his cruelty is driving
the novel, Frank shows no capacity for emo her away:
tional self-control. The first time Alexandra
mentions him, she characterizes him as "one Frank knew well enough that if he could
of these wild fellows" (61), which Frank vali once give up this grudge, his wife would
dates the first time we meet him: "He was come back to him. But he could never in
breathing hard, as ifhe had been running, and the world do that. The grudge was funda
was muttering to himself. ... Even in his mental. Perhaps he could not have given it
agitation he was handsome, but he looked a up if he had tried. Perhaps he got more
rash and violent man" (71). Because Mrs. satisfaction out of feeling himself abused
Hiller's hogs have gotten into his wheat, Frank than he would have got out of being loved.
works himself into a rage, vents to Marie, If he could once have made Marie thor
threatens to sue Mrs. Hiller (a widow with a oughly unhappy, he might have relented
lame son), throws himself on the couch, turns and raised her from the dust. (113 -14 )
his face to the wall, clenches his fists on his
hip, and falls asleep (71-72). He often works Frank clings to his grudge against his wife
himself into these rages and is "rough and because it gives him power over her while his
quarrelsome with his neighbors," most of pathological need to feel himself abused sug
whom tolerate him only for Marie's sake (72). gests a masochistic urge to preserve the source
Frank's combative nature is so dominant that of his own agony. He wants total control of
at the end of the novel Alexandra fears he Marie, and a sadistic impulse within him
will get himself into trouble while in jail (150). would relinquish his grudge only if he could
Even the follies of other people entage him: crush her spirit and make her totally un
"Frank was always reading about the doings happy. "For three years he had been trying to
of rich people and feeling outraged. He had break her spirit ... he wanted her to feel that
an inexhaustible stock of stories about their life was as ugly and as unjust as he felt it. He
crimes and follies" (75). Unable to control had tried to make her life ugly" (13 8). He also
his bitter futility, he often turns to Marie, tries to control her perception of life so that
who "soothed [him] when he had worked him through her he can affirm his vision of him
self into a frenzy" (136). His paranoia, jeal self as a victim of circumstances. Frank be
ousy, and self-destructive emotional outbursts gins to "bully her and to be unjust" (114),
show that, despite his Byronic youth, Frank transferring to her the injustice he feels life
has become a sad, unstable man. has directed toward him. As a result, Marie
Feeling helpless and undervalued, Frank is ceases to sympathize, thereby sharpening
preoccupied with being in control of Marie's Frank's feelings of rejection and his desire to
life. As Alcock notes, spousal abuse often re control her and possess her only for himself.
sults from "exaggerated efforts to gain or main- The text is never explicit about how Frank