A Lost Lady: A Narrative of Manifest Destiny and Neocolonialism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.20.1.5Keywords:
Colonialism, Imperialism, Manifest Destiny, Neocolonialism, PostcolonialismAbstract
The greatly examined story of A Lost Lady usually depicts Mrs. Forrester’s success in meeting and adapting to the challenges of a changing world, a world characterized by materialism and self-fulfilment. However, the overlooked story, one far more disturbing than the privileged story in the text, is the narrative of oppressed groups of people of other races and the lower class. Drawing on some aspects of postcolonial theory, this paper explores Willa Cather’s own reactions to real changes in her society, to the waning power of imperialism, and of her nostalgic longing for the western prairies of her youth, without showing any sympathy for the dispossessed Native Americans and other oppressed races. It will also disclose the unmistakable colonial overtones, which remarkably resonate with the common discourse of “Manifest Destiny†during the time period of American expansion to the Wild West.
References
Cather, W. (2003). A Lost Lady. University of Nebraska Press.
Fischer, M. (1990). Pastoralism and Its Discontents: Willa Cather and the Burden of Imperialism. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 23(1), 31-45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24780573
Foucault, M. (1980). History of Systems of Thought. In D. F. Bouchard (Ed.), Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (pp. 199-205). Cornell University Press.
Gustake, C. (2008). Recognition, resistance and empire in the frontier fiction of Jewett, Cather and Ferber (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
Haas, A. (2012). Borderlands Identities and Borderlands Ideologies in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. American Studies Journal, 57, https://doi.org/10.18422/57-02
Handley, W. R. (2002). Marriage, Violence and the Nation in the American Literary West. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511485527
Harvey, S. P. (1995). Redefining the American dream: the novels of Willa Cather. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Karush, D. (1996). Innocent Voyages: Fictions of U.S. Expansion in Cather, Stevens, and Hurston (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge.
Meisel, P. (2007). The Literary Freud. Routledge.
O'Brien, S. (1987). Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. Oxford University Press.
Ostler, J. (2004). The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee. Cambridge University Press.
Patton, T. O., & Schedlock, S. M. (2012). Gender, Whiteness, and Power in Rodeo: Breaking Away from the Ties of Sexism and Racism. Lexington Books.
Ryser, R. C. (2012). Indigenous Nations and Modern States: The Political Emergence of Nations Challenging State Power. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203139882
Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage.
Stout, J. P. (2000). Willa Cather: The Writer and Her World. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press.
Urgo, J. (1995). Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration. University of Illinois Press.
Perriman, W. K. (2009). Willa Cather and the Dance: A Most Satisfying Elegance. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Thomas, S. (1990). Willa Cather. Macmillan Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20407-6
Williams, R. (2005). Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. Verso.
Woodress, J. (1987). Willa Cather: A Literary Life. University of Nebraska Press.
Zinn, H. (2005). The Twentieth Century: A People's History. HarperCollins.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Access Policy and Content Licensing
All published articles on the ESNBU site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes. The terms on which the article is published allow the posting of the published article (Version of Record) in any repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Note that prior to, and including, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2024, articles were licensed under the Non-commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. The transition to CC BY 4.0 is effective as of Volume 11, Issue 1, 2025.
In other words, under the CC BY 4.0 license users are free to
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Under the following terms:
Attribution (by) - You must give appropriate credit (Title, Author, Source, License), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notice: No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, authors will notify ESNBU at the time of submission, and in such cases the article shall be released under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver CC0 1.0 Universal.
Copyright
Copyright for articles published in ESNBU are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. Authors retain full publishing rights and are encouraged to upload their work to institutional repositories, social academic networking sites, etc. ESNBU is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author.
Exceptions to copyright policy
Occasionally ESNBU may co-publish articles jointly with other publishers, and different licensing conditions may then apply.
