Neighbour Rosicky

Fiction | Short Story | Adult

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Themes

The Worthwhile Life

As "Neighbour Rosicky" opens, its main character has just been diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. Although neither Rosicky nor his doctor know exactly how long he will live, the diagnosis naturally prompts both of them to think back over Rosicky's life, which has been a happy but not especially profitable one. As a young man living in London and New York City, Rosicky struggled to fit into the competitive and materialistic society that surrounded him; rather than saving money, for instance, he would happily lend it to a friend. It was in fact partly his dissatisfaction with the greed and exploitation of urban life that led him out west, since he found that even a well-intentioned man like himself could easily end up hurting others simply by virtue of their own need to survive; in the city, for instance, people have to "choose between bosses and strikers, and go wrong either way" (Part VI, Paragraph 3). Ultimately, Cather defends Rosicky's decision to treat others with generosity and compassion, even at a cost to himself. In fact, one of Rosicky's most notable traits is what Polly describes as his "gift for loving people," and this innate drive to care for others is part of what finally makes Rosicky's life meaningful (Part VI, Paragraph 22).

Notably, however, Cather ties Rosicky's kindness to his profound ability to enjoy life. Rosicky is willing to forgo financial success not only to help others, but also for his own comfort and happiness in themoment, whether that means going to see an opera or enjoying a good meal. In effect, Rosicky has a heightened capacity for pleasure, but pleasure of a very basic kind; Cather says, for instance, that he has a "childish love" of "stage splendor [sic]," and he seems just as appreciative of Polly's beauty, or the beauty of the Nebraska landscape, as he is of artistic beauty (Part III, Paragraph 4).

Nevertheless, Cather suggests that this ability to enjoy even physical, sensory pleasures is intimately related to the ability to love selflessly. Polly, for example, feels she can sense Rosicky's goodness in his bodily presence: "It was as if Rosicky had a special gift for loving people…It was quiet, unobtrusive, it was simply there. You saw it in his eyes,—perhaps that was why they were so merry. You felt it in his hands, too" (Part VI, Paragraph 22). In a sense, "Neighbour Rosicky" implies that the capacity to find good in others and the capacity to find good in everyday life stem from the same source. As a result, even the apparently frivolous or wasted moments in Rosicky's life are part of what ultimately makes it worthwhile; in the end, Doctor Burleigh concludes that Rosicky's existence was "complete and beautiful" because everything in it reflected the same deep-seated goodwill and happiness (Part VI, Paragraph 32).

The City and the Country

Although it overlaps with the story's views on what makes Rosicky's life valuable, the juxtaposition of rural and urban life is also a theme in its own right. While "Neighbour Rosicky" does notexactly romanticize life in the country, it suggests that life in the city erodes the very qualities that make people human (and life worth living). At a very basic level, cities enclose people in an artificial environment that lacks the signs of life that permeate the natural world—or, as Rosicky puts it, cities "buil[d] you in from the earth itself, cement […] you away from any contact with the ground" (Part III, Paragraph 7). In contrast to this kind of living death in the city, death itself becomes "un-deathlike" in the country, because it is so thoroughly incorporated into surroundings that are organic and living (Part VI, Paragraph 32). This is particularly clear in Cather's descriptions of the cemetery where Rosicky is ultimately buried, and which is an "open and free […] little square of long grass which the wind forever stirred" (Part VI, Paragraph 32).

Of course, "Neighbour Rosicky" closely associates life and the natural world with the capacity to love. That being the case, it is not surprising that Cather also depicts the city as a place of great cruelty. Although Rosicky acknowledges that there are "mean people everywhere," the relative self-sufficiency of life as a farmer provides a buffer against such "depraved and poisonous specimens of man" (Part VI, Paragraph 4). By contrast, the greater complexity of the urban economy—the need to follow an employer's orders, or to buy goods or services from others—encourages double-dealing and hard-heartedness; in the city, Rosicky suggests, it is commonplace to "live by grinding or cheating or poisoning [your] fellow man" (Part VI, Paragraph 4). This is true even for an otherwise kind man like Rosicky, who remembers having to take money from people in need as a young tradesman. Frontier life is thus an "escape" for Rosicky, not only in the sense that it frees him from the constraints of life as a wage-laborer, but also in the sense that it allows him to preserve his basic sense of morality (Part VI, Paragraph 6). The country, in other words, is a place where a kind of basic innocence can survive; in passing on his farm to his sons, Rosicky hopes they can "get through the world without ever knowing much about the cruelty of human beings" (Part VI, Paragraph 5).

The Immigrant Experience

"Neighbour Rosicky" focuses almost exclusively on a Czech-American family, and (in particular) the experiences of a first-generation Czech immigrant. Although the story unfolds decades after Rosicky first comes to America, the challenges associated with immigration continue to make themselves subtly felt in the narrative. This is perhaps clearest in the tension that exists between the Rosicky family and their American daughter-in-law, Polly. Polly's stiffness with the Rosickys stems from multiple sources, but Cather strongly implies that cultural prejudice is a contributing factor; she writes, for instance, that Polly is "sensitive about having married a foreigner"—a doubly-loaded statement, since Polly is not only embarrassed by Rudolph's family, but also views Rudolph himself as a "foreigner," despite his having been born in America (Part IV, Paragraph 13).Given the pressures for second-generation Americans like Rudolph to assimilate, Rosicky's anxieties for his children's future become even more understandable. Rosicky's love of the Nebraska countryside, for instance, is partly a nostalgic reflection of his memories of his grandparents' farm back "in the old world"; as a result, Rosicky likely sees Rudolph's frustration with farming as a rejection of his heritage (Part VI, Paragraph 8).

Nevertheless, Cather generally endorses the optimistic (and traditionally American) view of immigration as a pathway to a better life. To be sure, "Neighbour Rosicky" touches on the physical deprivations and loneliness Rosicky experiences after first settling in England, where he cannot communicate with those around him. Once he arrives in New York, however, Rosicky builds a new life for himself through patience and hard work; he attends night school to learn English, travels west to become a farmhand, and eventually buys some land of his own (something he likely could not have afforded in Europe). Of course, Rosicky is helped in all of this by a preexisting network of Czech immigrants with their own newspapers, clubs, and social network. He alsonever achieves the prosperity that some of his neighbors do. On the whole, however, the story vindicates Rosicky's decision to emigrate to America, with the eventual understanding that develops between him and Polly hinting at a broader resolution of the "conflict" between the Rosickys' dual identities as Czech-Americans.