Power Structures in Willa Cather's My Ántonia, Schemes and Mind Maps of Construction

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Power Structures in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia

Anna-Karin Jonsson Kvist

Table of contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theory and Method
• 3. Previous research
• 4. Power structures in the society
• 5. Power structures affecting Ántonia.......................................................................
• 6. Power structures affecting Lena
• 7. Ántonia’s response to the power structures
• 8. Lena’s response to the power structures
• 9. Cather’s highlighting of unequal power structures
• 10. Conclusion
• 11. Works Cited.............................................................................................................

2. Theory and Method

Gender, the set of expectations that society connect to a certain sex, is a social construct with roots in the patriarchal power structure. Judith Butler discusses the relation between sex and gender through proposing that since gender is the cultural meaning of the sexed body, “then a gender cannot be said to follow from a sex in any one way” (Butler 6). She argues that there is a presumption of a binary gender system, which originates in the idea that there is a correspondence between sex and gender and that this presumed link restricts the notion of gender (Butler 7). This assumed connection between sex and gender provide individuals with a certain sex, with a gender construction, a set of expectations and unwritten rules that by society are connected to that sex. This construction can therefore limit or hinder development and changes that are not accepted by society. Raewyn Connell states that what can be observed is often individual acts and that it can be difficult to see the structures of power behind them (Connell 107). However, to reveal the prevailing power structures, it is important to analyse these acts and look for similarities and patterns. Power and its effects are central topics in this essay. An authority often referred to when analysing power, is the French author and philosopher Michel Foucault and through the years many analyses and interpretations have been made to fully understand his work. One of the sources used to interpret Foucault’s ideas within gender and feminist studies is A Foucault Primer Discourse, power and the subject by McHoul and Grace. To ensure that Foucault’s theories are interpreted correctly in the given context, this source has been used in the essay. According to McHoul and Grace, Foucault means that when analysing power, it is important to start from the very subject on whom the power is exercised (McHoul and Grace 88). They argue that Foucault emphasizes the importance of that when power is to be analysed, the focus should be on local and regional points of influence instead of on a central power (McHoul and Grace 88). This means that when studying power, the starting point should be to examine where the power takes place and what is exercising that power, not start of by searching for global means of power. Furthermore, they bring forward that Foucault states that it is important to analyse the effect of power, instead of delving into why it takes place and that in a power analysis, one must see power as a chain, a network-like organization (McHoul and Grace 89 ).

Individuals are both exposed to power and exercise power at the same time: “Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application” (McHoul and Grace 89 ). Foucault’s theories also state that one should analyse power, not from above, but from a bottom-up perspective and start in a micro perspective, as for example in a family or a classroom, because any form of power always starts in the smallest of actions at the micro-level of our society (McHoul and Grace 90 ). To understand the power structures, one should therefore start from the micro level and study the actions that affect the individual that is subject to the power in question. This essay will be based on the feminist theory of gender as a social construction as presented in Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. The method used in the essay will be close reading, and the power relations in the book will be analysed from the perspective of Foucault's power theory as interpreted in A Foucault Primer – Discourse, power and the subject by Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace. Another important term used in the thesis statement is the term woman emancipation. The definition for woman emancipation used in this thesis is based on the definition by EIGE, the European Institute for Gender Equality, which is: “Process, strategy and myriad efforts by which women have been striving to liberate themselves from the authority and control of men and traditional power structures, as well as to secure equal rights for women, remove gender discrimination from laws, institutions and behavioural patterns, and set legal standards that shall promote their full equality with men.” A part of the claim in this thesis is that Ántonia Shimerda and Lena Lingard achieve a higher degree of woman emancipation because of their active response to prevailing power structures. Hereby is meant that they both find responses to the power structures that they are exposed to, that allow them to experience a higher degree of freedom regarding the power structures in question.

subjects that culturally are defined as male. However, she claims that Cather shows a disdain for female characteristics, therefore limiting her contribution to the feminist cause (Hoffmann 26). Finally, Deborah Lambert argues that when writing My Ántonia , Cather had started to see the world from a male point of view and stopped picturing strong successful women, meaning that Ántonia is portrayed as following stereotypical patterns of dependency (Lambert 678 ). This thesis argues, contradictory to Lambert, that the main female characters in My Ántonia do achieve a higher degree of woman emancipation and that Cather use the hardships and disappointments of these women to highlight the prevailing unequal power structures and their restrictive gender roles.

4. Power structures in the society My Ántonia is set in the Black Hawk society, which is dominated by a strong patriarchal structure with traditional gender roles strongly associated to the biological sex for men and women. In this setting we can see what Butler describes as a binary gender system originating from the idea that a certain sex is associated with a restricted notion of gender, a stereotype that comes with being born as a man or woman (Butler 7 ). In Black Hawk society, being a woman means that there are rules and expectations that need to be obeyed if one shall be accepted. In My Ántonia , a woman that does not convey to those rules, risks being regarded as immoral and be exposed to gossip, or for example cannot get a good job to support herself or will not find anyone to marry. The life of the women in Black Hawk is filled with individual acts of oppression that are legitimized by the norms of society, but are really expressions of a larger pattern, the patriarchal power system, such as described by Connell as being difficult to see as a coherent pattern, but often are perceived as individual actions (Connell 107). Something that contributes to maintaining the binary gender system are the opinions and acts by the American farmers. The narrator, Jim, concludes that the American farmers in Nebraska are in the same financially pressured situation as the immigrant farmers, though they act differently since they do not allow their daughters to work. “But no matter in what straits the Pennsylvanian or Virginian found himself, he would

not let his daughters go out into service. Unless his girls could teach a country school, they sat at home in poverty” (Cather 179 ). This shows a view that a woman is not supposed to work outside the home and to make money of her own, unless she can get position as a teacher, which is an accepted profession. However, the immigrant girls do not have the opportunity to go to school and therefore they cannot get positions as teachers (Cather 17 9). This creates a kind of split within society between those performing according to the social rules and those who do not. It does not appear to be only a split between American and immigrant custom, but rather between divergent moral views, or the ability to follow the norm. One common reason for this difference seems to be lack of economic resources. If the children are needed as workforce at home, or if the family cannot afford to let children go to school, they are not allowed an education. This is particularly unfortunate for the girls, since the only morally accepted way to earn money outside of home is to teach and a condition for such a career is a proper education. The gender roles are not very flexible and women that do not conform to the expected role, risk condemnation by society which considers them as not being respectable, while men are not judged by the same rules. One example of this structure is the “Three Marys” (Cather 18 2) who worked one after another as housekeeper for a bachelor and who replaced each other when the previous Mary got pregnant, something that Jim describes as being “similarly embarrassed” (Cather 1 82). The three Marys are “considered as dangerous as high explosives” (Cather 182 ), while there is no account of whether the bachelor was considered dangerous after these happenings. The women must bear the blame for the incident, and that might be one reason for why it is considered so bad for women to work outside the home. The knowledge that society’s condemnation of women who get into trouble is so harsh, makes people reluctant to break the gender norms. Furthermore, if somebody wants to follow the norm in the Black Hawk society, the ability to do so, varies. The concept of being immigrant sometimes plays a role in being accepted, for example regarding ability to speak English. However, there does not seem to be a large difference in power between Americans and people of other origins, except that economy is scarcer when having recently arrived and generally improving with time. Families with a stable economy like the Harlings are better regarded than others.

and disappointments. Ántonia tries to keep a brave face and create an impression that she likes to work hard. However, she reveals to Jim Burden, the story’s narrator, that she regrets not being able to go to school. When the new term is about to start, Jim Burden goes to see her, to ask her if she can come to school, Ántonia replies: “I ain’t got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mother can’t say no more how Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him. I can work as much as him. School is all right for little boys. I help make this land one good farm.” She clucked to her team and started for the barn. I walked beside her, feeling vexed. Was she going to grow up boastful like her mother, I wondered? Before we reached the stable, I felt something tense in her silence, and glancing up I saw that she was crying. (Cather 115) As illustrated here, not being able to go to school and get an education is a great disappointment and sorrow to Ántonia. Her opportunities in life will be more limited by the fact that she was not given the possibility to go to school. The focus in the family is not on doing what is best for Ántonia, or for her sister. The goal is to create a good farm for her older brother Ambrosch. Jim Burden states: “Since the father’s death, Ambrosch was more than ever the head of the house, and he seemed to direct the feelings as well as the fortunes of his womenfolk” (Cather 118). Sometimes the consequences of her brother’s ambitions are difficult for Ántonia and makes her sad, like for example that she cannot attend school. Though Ántonia is working as hard as her brother, it is not for her own benefit. She is still just a tool for her brother’s success. Another sign of this is that her wages are paid not to her, but to her brother: “It was his plan that every cent of his sister’s wages should be paid over to him each month” (Cather 139 ). However, this was too conspicuous even for the otherwise patriarchal society. Ántonia’s employer, Mrs Harling, tells Ambrosch that she “would keep fifty dollars a year for Ántonia’s own use” (Cather 139). What is striking here is that there is a negotiation with the employee's brother about how her salary is to be paid. She is admittedly a minor, but it is not her mother who is addressed, but her brother who is not much older than herself. In this way, the patriarchal structure of the family is confirmed by the surrounding American society.

Furthermore, the Black Hawk society, with its given gender roles, affects and limits Ántonia’s freedom and ability to make own decisions. When she is working with the Harling family, the father in the family is concerned about the fact that she likes to go dancing with the other young women and when she is followed home by a young man after the dance and she slaps him when he tries to kiss her, Mr. Harling overhears them and confronts her: “This is what I’ve been expecting, Ántonia. You’ve been going with girls who have a reputation for being free and easy, and now you’ve got the same reputation (Cather 185). Ántonia is defending herself from a man who makes sexual approaches, yet she is blamed, which is reflecting the moral view of the society. Even though it is Mrs. Harling who has employed Ántonia and has the daily contact with her in her work, it is Mr. Harling who has the authoritarian power in the household, so when he tells Ántonia that she must stop going to the dance tent or she will lose her job, the wife agrees with her husband’s opinion: “You’ll have to do one thing or the other, Ántonia,” Mrs. Harling tells her decidedly. “I can’t go back on what Mr. Harling has said. This is his house” (Cather 186 ). Here she makes the power structure in the family very clear when referring to the house as her husband’s. Through this requirement, they limit Ántonia’s freedom to choose what to do in her spare time and therefore she decides to leave the household. Mr. Harling’s negative view regarding the dance can be seen as a reflection of the society’s view. Just like society, Mr Harling views the young women that go dancing as unsupervised and immoral and he does not want Ántonia, being employed in his house, to be associated with the dances. Moreover, the young, working women are called the “hired girls” (Cather 1 80), which is a term implying that they are obliged to work and do something for someone to receive money, something that was not socially accepted at this time and place. Furthermore, there is a negative view among the American settlers both regarding women that work out of the home, but also towards women that have worked outdoors in the fields: “The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, unenquiring belief that they were ‘refined,’ and that the country girls, who ‘worked out,’ were not” (Cather 179). Therefore, the immigrant women that have helped to start up a farm with their family through hard work outdoors, are regarded as inferior. Jim’s grandmother

wife to a failed and violent man and being mother of more children than she can provide for in a good way. In Lena’s eyes, this can be regarded as that she has lost her own identity, something that has made a great impression on Lena and her own decisions. Just like Ántonia, Lena is also affected by the patriarchal power structure in the society around her. While Lena is still a child, a married man falls in love with her and starts following her, something that she is blamed and miscredited for by the society, even though she did not do anything to encourage him. “She was accused of making Ole Benson lose the little sense he had – and that at an age when she should still have been in pinafores” (Cather 1 50). Lena herself refuses to take blame for what people accuse her of: “I never made anything to him with my eyes. I can’t help it if he hangs around, and I can’t order him off. It ain’t my prairie” (Cather 153). By these words, Lena does not just point out the fact that she does not have any authority to decide who comes close to her and her cattle. Her words can also be interpreted as highlighting women’s vulnerable situation. It is not her prairie, she has no power in society, neither do women in general in this society. This society’s judgement does not care about Lena’s innocence; even years later, the widow Steavens is referring to Lena as “always a bad one” even though she admits that she is “doing so much for her mother” (Cather 27 7). This is an example of that women also have internalised patriarchal values and prevent changes in the patriarchal structure. Lena seems to be regarded as guilty due to her good looks and her being a female. When the Norwegian preacher’s wife begs Lena to come to church on Sundays and gives her some old clothes to wear, Lena does as she is told and shows up at the church. However, people “stared at her” because they now understood “how pretty she was” and what even made things worse was that Ole Benson “lifted Lena on her horse”, something that “a married man was not expected to do” (Cather 151 - 152 ). It does not matter what Lena does and how she acts. Society clearly holds Lena responsible for what men think or do when she is around.

7. Ántonia’s response to the power structures At first, Ántonia is trying to adapt to the hard conditions that she is exposed to. While still working in the fields, she takes on a harsh attitude that Jim Burden questions. He is disturbed by this side of her, which he does not recognize as being herself: “Why aren’t you always nice like this, Tony?” “How nice?” “Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be like Ambrosch?” She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. “If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us.” (Cather 128) Ántonia seems to have understood that the conditions are harder for the settlers and to manage and to be accepted, under such hard conditions, qualities like strength, endurance, and ability to work hard are demanded. These are qualities traditionally thought of as masculine. She tries to adapt those features, which appears to be her way to find acceptance and fulfilment, when other ways are closed to her since she cannot attend school. Several times she compares herself with men, that she can do the same amount of work as a man and she declares: “I like to be like a man” (Cather 127). This statement can imply more than just physical strength, for example freedom, independence, acceptance, empowerment, and respect. These are goals that would be so much easier for her to achieve at this time and place, if she would have been a man. However, Ántonia finds strength to break the established gender role for a woman and instead adapts a more traditionally masculine attitude, where she takes pride in coping with the same amount of work as any man, a strategy that gives her self-respect, if not the respect of the norm conservative society. This is consistent with Hoffmann’s interpretation of My Ántonia, regarding Cather being against the locking of subjects into rigid gender positions. Cather is using the characterization of Ántonia to explore the traditional gender norms.

8. Lena’s response to the power structures Lena’s childhood experiences and her mother’s inability to care for herself and her children make her determined not to depend on any man, so she works hard and devotes her life to her business. Lena cares a lot about her younger siblings. Jim mentions that she “was always knitting stockings for little brothers and sisters” (Cather 150 ) and she feels a kind of responsibility for both them and her mother, which gives her a determination to work hard and to make life better for both her mother and herself. She mentions to Jim: “I wish father didn’t have such bad luck with his farm machinery; then I could buy more things for my sisters” (Cather 215). Lena’s goal when she leaves home for work is to get her mother a new, better house. She says: “the men will never do it” (Cather 216). The determination to live a better life, combined with her own family serving as a bad example, makes her decide never to get married herself (Cather 256). When Jim questions her decision, she explains that the main reason not to get married is that she does not want a husband (Cather 257) and she describes marriage as “all being under somebody’s thumb” (Cather 258). She wants freedom to make her own decisions, something that she cannot achieve within marriage (Cather 257 ). Therefore, her response to the patriarchal power structure within her family is to provide for her mother, and to make sure that she does not end up in the same situation as her, depending on men. Lena’s success within her work, and her ability to thrive with her own business, added to the fact that she manages to take care of her mother so well, forces people to adjust their opinion regarding her. They seem to admit that she is a good daughter to her mother, even though they still hold her responsible for how men react to her physical appearance (Cather 277). Lena’s hard work and subsequent prosperity, and her refusal to get married and let a man define her, are her response to the patriarchal power structures within society. 9. Cather’s highlighting of unequal power structures In My Ántonia , Cather uses the characterization of Ántonia and Lena to highlight the unequal power structures. Women’s unfair conditions are given light through their

disappointments and hardships. The choice of a male narrator, Jim Burden, can be seen as a further move to underline and legitimate such an exposure. Jim Burden’s observations of the inequal power structure seem more objective since he is a man, for example she lets him declare: “I thought the attitude of the town people towards these girls very stupid” (Cather 180), regarding how the working girls were treated by society. This utterance is more acceptable and has a more objective approach since Jim is a man, which is in line with the claims of Laird who sees Jim Burden’s role in the narrative as Cather’s attempt to increase her story’s credibility (Laird 248). Through Jim’s reactions, Cather also sheds light on the hardships of Ántonia and Lena as they are exposed to the unequal power structures. At the same time, Cather uses Jim as a naïve representative of the male sex as she sometimes lets him carry the same conservative values that she wants to expose, for instance as he is upset and disappointed in Ántonia when she gets pregnant. Cather uses expressions as: “I was bitterly disappointed in her” (Cather 164 ) and “I could forgive her” (Cather 268) and she is letting Ántonia say: “I’ve disappointed you so” (Cather 284). Jim reacts as if she has betrayed him or his values. Thereby the reader understands that he is also part of the patriarchal society. Also, regarding his relation to Lena, Jim sometimes becomes part of the patriarchal society. He is drawn to Lena, just like the other men are. Jim dreams about Lena (Cather 202) and eventually he blames their relationship for not being able to focus on his studies (Cather 255). However, the clearest example of when Jim is representing the patriarchal society regarding Lena, is when he takes for granted that Lena wants to get married one day, something that she reveals that she will not do because of her bad experience of marriages and husbands (Cather 257). Through Jim’s reactions, Cather sheds light on the hardships of Ántonia and Lena as they are exposed to the unequal power structures. One of the great injustices that Cather points out in My Ántonia is the varying possibilities to have an education and that often the poor or newly arrived girls were the ones who could not have one. To become a teacher was an accepted way to make a career even for women, something that was not possible for those who had not attended school (Cather 1 79). For newly arrived in America, school would have been an