Willa Cather Character Analysis

Carolyn DeGrazia Professor Gerald January 30, 2012 Character Analysis Willa Cather once said, Where there is great love, there argon always wishes. She makes this quote relevant in her Pulitzer-prize winning novel, One of Ours. One of Ours is a story about Claude Wheeler, a young man from Nebraska, struggling to find his purpose in life. Throughout the entire novel, he only has one consistent presence in his life that truly believes in him and that is his mother. Mrs. Wheeler, a Protestant Christian, has been married to Mr.Wheeler for more than twenty years. Although she has birthed three boys, she has taken care of many a(prenominal) others in her life delinquent to the farm life of her husband. Thats exactly what she is-a caretaker. She was the perfect visionary of a woman during the time fulfilment of World War 1. She did was she was told and seldom complained. Claude Wheeler has always had a deep connection with his mother. In the ancestor of the novel, Claude is forced to go to Temple, a religious university where his mother knows the headmaster. Claude and his mother give and take.Although they may not tally on some of their choices, they support each other in every way. When asked her opinion of Claudes self-fulfilling obligation of signing up for war, Mrs. Wheeler has quietly put down her knife and fork. She looked at her husband in a vague alarm, while her fingers moved restlessly about over the tablecloth. (pg. 172) She knows her place and understands that Claude has been disappointed to many times in his life for her to get in the way of his dreams of war. When Claude passed off, Mrs. Wheeler seemed relieved that he passed away overseas. He died believing his own country better than his. (pg. 336) All throughout Claudes life, Mrs. Wheeler had bounty for her son and attempted to understand and simmer his disappointment with the world. The connection between her and her son will perpetually go down in history. Her faith in God helped her t hrough her grief of losing Claude. And for her, He is adjacent stilldirectly overhead, not so very far above the kitchen stove. (pg. 337) The love she has for her son is evoke and she wishes great things for him in life and in death.