3 - Critical Conversations on Gender and Sexuality

Summary

In 1913, Willa Cather garnered much praise upon publishing O Pioneers! In a review titled “A Novel without a Hero,” the New York Times Book Review praised O Pioneers! as “a tale that is American in the best sense of the word,” despite its lack of a hero. The reviewer continued, “Possibly some might call it a feminist novel, for the two heroines are stronger, cleverer and better balanced than the husbands and brothers—but we are sure Miss Cather had nothing so inartistic in mind” (56). This review revealed, first, the pervasiveness of questions surrounding the role and impact of gender on Cather's work. Second, it revealed the reviewer's subtext—that feminist approaches are “inartistic”— which highlights the political and social complexities surrounding those gendered approaches. In the 1970s, feminist critics challenged insinuations that gender criticism was somehow inartistic by developing theories and methodologies to provide more nuanced and sophisticated analyses of gender in literature.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the roles of feminist, gender, and sexuality criticism in Cather scholarship. Cather's identity as a female author, one who never married but who lived in domestic partnership with another woman for most of her life and who was deeply committed to exploring the lives of women in her fiction, would seem an ideal candidate for critics seeking to explore gender and sexuality in American literature. As many feminist critics discovered, some aspects of Cather's life and fiction did not fit these critical approaches readily. For example, biographical scholars noted that Cather made dismissive comments toward female authors and women's social associations: Shouldn't feminist writers support the advancement of women? Cather's sexuality—and the general lack of sexual relationships in her fiction—provided a challenge as well: Was it appropriate to label Cather a “lesbian” writer? Rather than reaching an easy consensus, Cather critics working in the areas of feminist and sexuality studies revealed deep complexities in Cather's writing and, additionally, in these critical fields themselves.

A comprehensive study of feminist approaches to Cather's work could constitute an entire volume of its own; rather than presenting a detailed survey, this chapter opens with a discussion of common approaches and questions that arose in early feminist criticism through representative critical works.