The Correlation Between Art and Death in Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart: Fatality of Art or Artistic Failure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1501.35Keywords:
artistic accomplishments, baffled possibilities, fragmented psyche, romanticized, womenAbstract
This study explores the representation of art in Willa Cather's Lucy Gayheart (1935), which is viewed as an essential aspect of the novel in terms of its vitality and dominance. The novel subtly yet persistently invokes new possibilities for general human behavior and supportive interconnectedness among women. As the female experience looms large in Cather's fiction, Lucy Gayheart illustrates the dangers of presenting women in a romanticized, ethereal light. However, the present paper intends to prove that Cather's attempt at romanticizing her heroine's stance leads to a war between artistic accomplishment and acquisitive spirit. Through examining Cather's Lucy Gayheart, this paper contends that women's perplexed possibilities are a miniature of the fragmented psyche that pervades Cather's work.
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