Business Essays on Cathers novel O Pioneer - Dissertation Example

Business Essays Why does Alexandra seek Frank Shabata’s release from jail? Her decision seems astonishingly absent of recrimination, Frank having murdered her brother as well as his wife. What account of human psychology motivates Alexandra’s decision? Can you identify any link between her decision and her account of ownership and her business practice? Cather’s novel O Pioneer describes the story of a strong willed, intelligent, and confident girl Alexandra. The story gets its uniqueness from its heroine Alexandra’s character who independently worked on the land and changed the future of her family. After the death of her father, Alexandra is given the responsibility to work on farms and look after her family. As against the traditional roles, Alexandra is one of those females who is visionary and artistic and has skills more trusted by her father then her brothers who are ego centric, typical males claiming right over the property she made. The story revolves around Alexandra and her three brothers. Emil who is her youngest brother and is sent to study by Alexandra is quite close to her, and they share a quite deep understanding. In fact, Alexandra’s close relation can only be identified with three main characters: Carl, Marie and Emil. The story gets twisty when Emil and Marie, (who is already married to Frank) falls in love with each other and are caught by Frank who shoots them. However, the end to the novel is rather shocking as per Alexandra’s response to the death of her loving brother and her close friend Marie, because she forgives Frank. This reaction seemed appalling because Alexandra loved Emil too much to forgive his murderer so easily, but there are a number of reasons behind her decision. One of the most important reasons relates to the fact that Alexandra knew what type of person Frank was, and she was never quite fond of him as a person, but she also knew that Marie crossed her limits and by keeping relations with Emil, she broke the ties of piousness and virtue as she allowed herself into an act of adultery. Emil and Marie did wrong and Frank even though he murdered them, just did what he was expected to do being the person he was and the ugly life he lived and gave to Marie too. So Alexandra could draw out the conclusion that Emil and Marie were to be more blamed then Frank was to this murder. She had sympathies for Frank, who lived in a town which was foreign to him and had no friends or family here but just Marie who cheated him and pushed him into committing this crime. Also, when she went to visit Frank in jail she realized that Frank was paying the most penalty for a sin more attributed to Emil and Marie then Frank because the conditions in jail were too negative and he did not deserved to live in such awful conditions. Alexandra’s decision to release Frank was influenced by the type of life she had lived. She dedicated her life to her land, in nurturing and prospering it and in doing this, she somehow neglected her feminism. She devoted all her love and care to the land and in a way she lost her feelings towards the opposite gender, the feeling of attraction, of liking and loving or even understanding the sexuality and erection which existed between Emil and Maria. This side is called her blind side in the novel. Spending all her love to the land left no capacity in Alexandra to understand the sexual feelings or erection which is aroused between opposite sexes and so she could understand Frank more than she could understand feelings of Marie. Furthermore, even though being independent and strong in character, Alexandra is described to be a religiously obedient person who believes in following customs and confirms to the teachings of The Bible. She clearly disregards Marie breaking the oath and promises she made when getting married to Frank and this feeling gets even stronger because of her surpass of the feeling of love and attraction. Alexandra was asexual by her character because of having no relation with any guy ever in her life and even her relation with Carl was friendly and that of understanding as against the relation Emil and Marie shared of sexuality, youthfulness and impulse. Alexandra had pushed her inner feelings for any men so deep inside that she never felt it. She was completely happy being single and doing her usual chores and working on land. She never missed the presence of a male or a lover or mate in her life to take care of her. She was dead or blind to this side of human need and because of this, she failed to see the innocent love of Emil and Maria and understood that Frank didn’t hate Emil, but he just did what he was ought to do in that situation because it was bigger a mistake of Emil then it was of Marie. After the death of Emil, Alexandra felt no love or the feeling of ownership even for her land because she felt hollow from inside and wanted escape. At this point, in the book, Cather related the person in Alexandra’s dream as death, because only death can be as strong and taking as she dreamed, and this is the time when she lets her inner self-free from the trap she created within herself. She accepts her feminism and sexual feelings as well as the need of attention and care for her life. She misses Carl and longs to have him by her side and believes in spending the rest of her life with a person who understands and loves her and owns her. The story is centered on Alexandra’s efforts to cultivate her land and make it productive, even when all others lost their faith and moved out, she believed in it and finally succeeded. By the end to the novel, she understands that people come and go but the land stays and only one who loves the land should own it. There is a strong link between her account of ownership and her decision to free Frank. Alexandra believed in her land and worked on it diligently even when her own brothers and other neighbors left in search of other easy ways to survive. To survive in bad times is harder than surviving the good times and Alexandra survived the tough periods and gave up her youth and dedicated her life to her land even when it was risky, she took chance. This is the reason she owned her land because she loved it and stood by it when no one did and she is said to be a pioneer who sacrifices her self to achieve happiness for her family. Same way, Marie should have resisted the temptation when Emil came in her life and she should have sacrificed her self for the good of her family and society, but she could not do it and gave up to her temptation which resulted in a disaster of hers, Emil’s and Frank’s life as well. Alexandra though did blame Marie but could not fully categorize her as being guilty or innocent because falling in love with someone is not a crime to be blamed for, but she could not also deny the fact that a woman can lead a man’s life. Marie led Emil in wrong direction and she also destroyed Frank in the way. Therefore, Alexandra had to help Frank. To conclude, there is a direct link between the decision made by Alexandra and the ownership of her land. Alexandra is persistent in her efforts in cultivating the land in the time when others like her brothers and neighbors have lost their faith in it. She believed and worked on it when no one did and so she owned it. Same way, Marie’s life got troubled form the temptations she felt for Emil, but she did not survived these temptations rather yielded to them and so she was to be blamed more than Frank. This was the reason Alexandra helped Frank because Frank just behaved naturally like any other would have but Marie should have resisted her temptation and sacrificed herself for the greater good. Read More