Cather's Nostalgia for the Past:
Romanticizing Time and Its Landscape
Via Symbolism and Parallels
by
Dr. Nan DeVincentis-Hayes

        The years of Cather's reign--1873-1947--witnessed many rapid changes: from the introduction
  of man to the frontier, the eventual arrival of trains, to the disintegration of the once untamed
  plains--all because of commercialization and prosperity. Cather's stories chronicle these tough
  beginnings through the eyes of a nostalgic. In each account, she strives to recover her past
  while refusing to look at life as it exists. Perhaps by juxtaposing herself with her characters, she
  can relive all the things she considers to have been wonderful.

        We can see that Cather's biography superimposes itself on her writings in the character of Jim 
  Burden in Antonia and Latour in Death; both of whom were displaced from what was home; as
  a child, Cather, too, was moved from the lush green hills of Virginia to the bland rugged plains
  of Nebraska where sheer survival skills served as the only weapon. In spite of the struggles, 
  Cather appears to have gleaned much from the experience, particularly an understanding of the
  uncontrollable progression of time as seen through the landscape of the lost: lost ancient 
  civilizations, lost sacred traditions as part of self, lost heroes and heroines as victors of time,
  and a lost melding of art with religion as a means of man's consciousness. Too, It is her loss 
  of the South, the West, and Europe, and all that each connote--the South's gentility and grace
  of manners, the West's naturalness and strength, and Europe's richness in art and history--that
  seep into her writings. What is happening, she tells us, is the decline and fall of man in all his
  realms--spiritually, physically, emotionally--because of modern civilization stripping him of the
  elements essential to his human development. This is what Cather's nostalgic about.

        To illustrate her themes, Cather makes generous use of symbolism and parallels to represent
  her nostalgia, her yearning for the idealized past, her craving for the return of what was. She 
  romanticizes the progression of time through signs that represent Biblical beginnings, ancient 
  civilizations, and wild frontiers. One of the major themes she purports is:

       Genesis: In the beginning there was the universe created by a God: ". . .the earth was at first
  a shapeless, chaotic mass. . .. vapors separate[d] to form the sky above and the oceans below
  . . ." [Genesis]. The land, before God peopled it and made forests rich and meadows green, was
  rugged, angular, raw--much like Cather's great plains and the Divide on which Antonia and 
  Alexandra reside and Latour travels. The "chaotic mass" spoken of in Genesis is of the same
  dark, embryonic texture as in Nebraska--both of which are virgin, waiting to be stroked and loved.
  But while God creates light, Cather creates heros to serve as the light, the guiding force that will
  remove the chaos and harvest the fertile soil or, as in Latour's case, lay open the path for Christians. 
        From the universe's barren beginnings, we journey with Cather to its gardens (in all the books),
  and move on to the antediluvian age (in Death), then to ancient civilizations (Indians, Spanish
  conquerors, etc; in all her books), and finally on to the wild west where the lonely pioneer
  braves hardships and dangers to advance society. From these five stages, Cather then traverses
  us to the era of prosperity where her nostalgia begins to fade just as the spirituality that guided
  the ancients and frontiersmen also fades. With each era's advancement comes the further 
  decline of man and his spirituality. This fall of man, says Cather in her writings, causes man to
  lose himself, his consciousness, as seen in Professor, that can only be redeemed through a 
  rebirth in order to gain back divinity. This last stage--the beginning of industrialization--is the 
  final period for Cather, the period in which man is alive but soulless. 
        Cather parallels this journey through time with that of birth itself--the dark terrain holding the
  seeds of life, the embryo holding the seeds of mankind. For Cather, journeys may be of an
  exterior landscape where the land's physiography serves as the guide, or an interior landscape
  where the mind creates its own shapes. But whether Cather's landscapes are an adventure 
  outside or inside herself, their cruelty and harshness are glossed over and beautified; as a
  result, a nostalgia for what is loss through time is born. Each of her books presents this 
  loss-through-time premise in some form which she symbolizes in a variety of ways: the snake
  as a circle (biting its tail) for the repetition of time, life and birth; the elements--land, air, water, 
  fire--to represent the essentials of life; the vegetation myth (warm/cold); the creation story in
  whole or part; the chaos-versus-order theory; the changing landscapes for advancing times; 
  the idea of primitive versus civilized in conjunction with the prosperity versus spirituality
  battle; and the loss-to-gain theory in which Cather seems to be telling us that we must give up
  something in order to gain something better in the end. 
        To enrich her theme Cather makes use of the seasons and colors to show the passing of time,
  that life goes on, not lineal, but simultaneously or cyclically like the snake. In Pioneers, 
  Alexandra says,". . .the old story writing itself over. . ..we come and go, but the land is always
  here." It is this cycle with its spiritual roots and marks of time that Cather presents to us in her 
  stories.
        Cather's symbolism of this cycle is replete with all the signs: In Antonia it's the sanctuary
  image (the Garden; Antonia's farm) where there exists a "specialness," a mystique or holiness;
  Jim says: ". . .across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low
  west . . . the moon rose . . . as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose color,
  thin as a bubble . . . a ghost-moon . . . the two luminaries confronted each other across the
  level land, resting on opposite edges of the world. In that singular light every little tree and 
  shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high
  and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply . . . the old
  pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall" (207).
        Here, on her farm, Antonia is the mother-earth figure, the healer, the Eve--mother of children,
  saint of the garden, goddess of fertility--a fertility that disappears with the penetration of the
  railroad. Antonia is symbolic, then, of life. Cather shows this well when Jim stands watching
  the Cuzak children rise out of the cave, one by one--out of Antonia's womb much the way 
  Christ arose out of Mary's. Antonia, then, as earth-mother, is also symbolic of the American
  agrarian society--an ancient one based on the generosity of gods and goddesses for harvests.
        Additionally, Cather reminds us of this cyclical, spiritual foundation of life by having 
  Mr. Shermida kneel and make the Sign of the Cross at Jim's grandparents' house; superstitions
  and traditions of not granting him proper rites of the church follow because of his suicide. 
  Other symbols are the famed snake--the archetype of evil. Cather depicts Krajiek as the snake
  in the garden (fields) living among the badgers, who are the Shermidas because they too sleep 
  in the earth. 
        Like My Antonia, O' Pioneers is filled with the symbolism of spirituality passing with the 
  progression of time; this, Cather tells us, is a negative evolution because the passing strips 
  man of his faith, love, youth. She draws a variety of parallels to depict this loss, such as the 
  mulberry tree in the orchard. This then is the symbolic Garden of Eden where Marie and Emil 
  are tempted and slain. Upon discovering them, Ivar cries: "Mistress . . .it has fallen! Sin and 
  death for the young ones!" (157).
        Another example is Cather's reference to Genesis 27:14 where Lou and Oscar resent Alexandra 
  for being the one picked by their father to carry on, just as Esau bore a grudge against Jacob 
  "because of the blessings which his father had given him." Too, exemplary is Ivar being 
  paralleled to Noah--both who love the animals and are put in charge of them to care for and 
  heal. Ivar says, "'A big white bird . . . maybe she thought my house was a boat'" (24). The ark
  reference is unmistakable. In later chapters Cather moves us from the story's genesis to 
  succeeding years of progress--an evolution that brings advancements in agrarian techniques 
  but losses in man's spirituality.
        In The Professor's House the same theme is played but in a more contemporary setting. The 
  land has been tamed with farms and gardens, colleges have been built by man's technology, 
  and distance has been conquered by better and faster modes of transportation. Cather 
  continues her yearning for past values, for man's mystical and spiritual basis. This she does 
  by showing St. Peter's distaste of materialism--a result of progress--and by his wanting to hole
  himself up in a sparsely furnished, dungeoned room which is much like the cave in Antonia 
  and Death. Godfrey dislikes his son-in-law Louie because Marsellus represents "things" over 
  interior qualities--desires over spirituality. In St. Peter we see Cather's nostalgia for the past, 
  her desiring life to be the way it was before the Gold Rush and the temptation of money to 
  obtain riches, her desiring man's return to his embryonic stage of spirituality. With the passing 
  of the spiritual basis of life comes the passing of youth as well, and in St. Peter we see how 
  this loss affects him. " . . . I'd consider my good years largely wasted," he said (62). It is only 
  through his "rebirth"--much like Christ's resurrection--that the Professor comes to grapple 
  with these losses. 
        Symbols abound in Death Comes for the Archbishop; a few of them are genesis as illustrated 
  by the different gardens referred to throughout the text, and the use of caves and valleys to 
  represent wombs and life's return to the earth at death. Wine not only signifies pleasure and 
  taste but it's also symbolic of Christ's blood. And in Death's Eden there again exists the snake
  --this not only in physical form but also in the form of temptation faced by such priests as 
  Martinez and Lucero. In counterbalance Cather gives us the hell Lucero dies in. His fear of the
  Great Darkness prompts him to demand that candles be lit throughout his dwelling. In his final
  moments of a tortured life ("He rolled his head to one side . . . his features sharpened . . . lips 
  twitched back over his teeth . . . a clicking of breath in his mouth . . . [he] spoke like a horse
  for the last time"), he cries, "'Eat your tail, Martinez, eat your tail!' Almost at once he died in
  convulsion" (171).
        Other symbols of this transcendence of spirituality are the city of Rome for the Papacy and 
  all it represents, as well as the Decline and Fall of civilization; the rock--upon which the Indian 
  civilization is built and Latour's Cathedral is constructed--is representative of refuge and 
  strength, as well as a God-centered universe, for in Catholicism no altar is built without the 
  Altar Stone. The Bell of San Miguel symbolizes the three bells rung during Communion for the
  Communicant to admit his sin and request forgiveness. The cruciform tree along with the
  various priestly items--vest, cossacks, collar, all in the color purple--signify Catholicism, and 
  thus, Christianity.. 
        Cather's Magdalena is symbolic of Mary of Magdalene in the Bible who washed Christ's 
  feet--took mercy on Him as Magdelena took mercy on the priests; Latour's encounter with 
  Sada sketches the Virgin Mary account--one of the Mysteries of the Church. Goats symbolize
  paganism or the Blood of the Lamb (Christ), as well as the coming apocalypse and thus the 
  necessity for God.

  
Conclusion

        Cather presents the loss of traditions, mores, heros and heroines, youth and vigor, and 
  consciousness--what for her is the spirituality of man--as something incommunicable. And being
  something that can't be orated, she has chosen symbols to explain for her. This theme runs
  through all her books--a theme that tells us she is bothered enough by the progression of time and
  its effect on man's soul to want a return to the past, a past that she has romanticized. 
        Cather creates different situations in each book to propagate her ideas, but the basic are the 
  same in every instance. As with a road map where we must learn what the key, the legend, means
  in order to apply it to the squiggly lines, Cather presents her map of past-to-present where we
  must apply the legend's symbols in order to learn about the path we're on.
        Cather's mind-set gives us insight into her homesickness, her nostalgia for all the good things 
  man and his landscape of yore represented. So that when she eulogizes the land, we realize 
  that she's also eulogizing the death of those attributes. Thus when she says "Optima dies
  . . . prima fugit," we understand.


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