O Pioneers!

Part 4 explores issues of illicit love, moving away from home, and complex family dynamics.

These chapters focus on Emil. His first and most important conflict is that of forbidden love. He pines for Marie, who is married. He leaves home to avoid Marie but can’t forget about her. Emil is an eligible young man, so his preoccupation with Marie shows that he truly loves her; if he just wanted a wife, Emil could easily find a young woman at home in Hanover or abroad in Mexico. Marie’s pull on Emil is significant enough that he violates major social codes of propriety. It’s inconceivable even to Alexandra that Emil would have feelings for a married woman, and yet these norms don’t make space for individual experience. Both Marie and Emil are fuller characters than their relationship statuses dictate. However, because there is little room to negotiate social norms, Emil and Marie don’t discuss their attraction to one another with anyone else. This secret keeps them bound together, but it also threatens their ability to make rational decisions about their situation, leading them to act on impulse. Divorce was difficult and socially discouraged during this time period; for Marie (a Catholic), divorce is technically impossible. The couple’s love is therefore an unsolvable problem: Marie and Emil can’t be together, but they also can’t stay away from one another. Marie embraces this pain as a natural and good part of life, believing that it helps one learn what they want and appreciate what they have. As a privileged, unmarried man, Emil doesn’t have the self-discipline to endure pain the way Marie does. This difference—between man and woman, between single and married—is central to the conflict that ends in their deaths.

Another internal conflict Emil faces centers on his relationship with his family. These chapters reveal that Emil never liked his brothers. Oscar and Lou are in turn suspicious of institutionalized education and believe that Emil has been spoiled. Even though Emil’s new opportunities are exactly what the family dreamed about in their harder years, Emil doesn’t have the relationship with Oscar and Lou that would allow them to appreciate his success. Emil is too young to fully understand all that Oscar and Lou sacrificed for him, and Emil’s struggles are too privileged and American for Oscar and Lou to empathize with. In acting as a father, mother, and role model to Emil, Alexandra unintentionally exacerbates this tension. Alexandra raises Emil and provides him with unique opportunities, which builds resentment between Alexandra and her other brothers. Meanwhile, Emil respects and loves Alexandra in ways he doesn’t Oscar and Lou.

It is notable that Emil doesn’t know his father. Emil was five years old when his father died, so his memories of John Bergson are weak and insubstantial, and he doesn’t have masculine role models because he doesn’t want to emulate Oscar and Lou. This emphasizes Emil’s complicated identity as a second-generation American. He is the first in his family to try something outside of farming, which makes him hard for his siblings to understand: Emil is also very much alone in his own pioneering journey. Added to this conflict is the drama between Alexandra and her older brothers. She still has not spoken to Oscar and Lou since their argument about Carl. The division in this family is especially difficult given the interdependency of farm life.

Emil’s third conflict centers on his place in the world. Emil feels restless on the farm, and he has the option to travel the world and pursue a higher education. Though this is a major privilege, Emil is overwhelmed by his freedom. Leaving home is exciting, but it is also fraught with tension. The familiarity of Hanover is comforting to Emil, as are the people. In Hanover, he has Marie, Alexandra, and good friends. However, as Alexandra’s experiences demonstrate, people may die, change, or leave, altering the notion of home in the process. In the normal course of events, Emil would need to figure out the meaning of home for himself, but his death answers the question for him. Emil is buried in Nebraska, ensuring that he stays home and close to his sister for the rest of eternity.

The escalating tension of these chapters builds up to the climax of the story. In Parts 3 and 4, Marie’s dissatisfaction within her marriage hangs over her, making her more withdrawn than usual. She can’t get her feelings for Emil or Frank out of her mind, and Emil is also engaged in his own emotional affair with Marie. Their kiss at the Catholic fair is the beginning of their end. It solidifies the naturalness of their love for one another, and it is a turning point in their character development. Neither can pretend that they are just friends anymore; they lean into their affair and avoid thinking about the consequences. Marie and Emil meet under the white mulberry tree, where they embrace and are killed. The white mulberry tree is therefore a symbolic location, drawing an implicit connection between requited love and death. In getting what he wants, Emil dooms himself. The mulberry tree is also white, symbolizing innocence. Emil and Marie did not know that their love would be life-threatening but simply embraced one another out of a natural and impulsive desire.

Cather provides a plot twist when Frank shoots and kills Marie and Emil. Frank doesn’t set out to kill anyone but is as impulsive in his own way as Marie and Emil are. The community of Hanover is so tight-knit that violence among community members is shocking. Furthermore, Emil is Alexandra’s favorite brother and like a son to her, while Marie is Alexandra’s best friend; the heartbreak of their deaths is certain to reverberate to other characters. This plot twist reveals that people are not necessarily safe even in the security of their communities. It also underscores the pent-up emotions that people struggled to express during this time period, which in the novel finally and destructively erupt.