SAMPLE AUTHOR FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY

Willa Cather: Voice of the West

James Michener said, “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” This quote perfectly describes the kind of writer Willa Cather is. This respected and nationally acclaimed author captivates her readers by her ability to take the human stories of life and turn them into literary masterpieces. Willa Cather led an extraordinary life, writing a realistic short story from an experience in her life and showing the qualities of a gentle woman.

Wiletta (Willa) Sibert Cather was welcomed into the world on December 7, 1873, to James and Mary Virginia Cather. She was the oldest of seven children. The Cathers lived in Winchester, Virginia. At the age of nine, Willa and her family moved to the prairie town of Red Cloud, Nebraska, the setting for many of her novels and short stories. Willa attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. During college, Willa worked as a columnist for the Nebraska State Journal and the Lincoln Courier and as a theater critic. After graduating in 1895, her journalistic experience took her to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania Willa taught high school there for five years and during that time experienced a tragedy. One of her students committed suicide which was the inspiration for one of her short stories. In 1904, Willa moved to New York City and worked six years for McClure Magazine as an editor. During this time, Willa began to share an apartment with Edith Lewis, a writer, and they lived together until Willa’s death. This stirred up some rumors that Willa was a lesbian. It was believed that Willa had many ‘relationships’ with women who supports the theory that she was a lesbian. In 1905, Willa wrote her first collection of short stories entitled The Troll Garden. Willa won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for her novel One of Ours. Willa wrote many short stories and novels, including My Antonia, which many critics say is a gift to American literature. Willa was awarded many honorary degrees from Yale, Princeton, and Berkeley. Her successes earned her the cover of Time Magazine as well as a gold medal from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Willa Cather died on April 24, 1947 at the age of seventy-four in New York from a cerebral hemorrhage.

One of Willa’s passions was writing short stories. Willa often used personal experiences and used them as inspiration for characters or setting in her stories. One short story that correlates well with Willa’s life is Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament. This story follows a misunderstood teenage boy named Paul through his troubles of finding his individuality. Paul finds refuge as an usher in a local theater, and hides from his world of pain and complexity. Stealing money from the theater, he runs away to New York hoping for a fresh start. Later caught by the police, Paul comes to grips with reality and commits suicide by jumping in front of a train. The issue in Paul’s Case is that people need to be sympathetic to the misunderstood, and learning the true character in a person is key to finding out who someone is. This story was inspired by one of Willa’s own students during her teaching career. Just like Paul, her student had a mysterious and complex character. He had problems with everything and everyone who crossed his path, and his problems eventually led to his suicide. Willa took her own experience and turned it into this dramatic and stirring short story.

What is a gentle woman? In my perspective, a gentle woman is a woman who is understanding and compassionate. Willa Cather proves to be a gentle woman because she shows through her writing her understanding and sympathy for those people who are misunderstood and downtrodden. When Willa first arrived in Red Cloud she was homesick and lonely. But she felt a connection to the immigrant woman she befriended in her new town on the American frontier. She would spend hours in conversation with them, listening to their stories, learning their customs and trying to understand their language. Homesickness linked Willa and the immigrant workers, and although Willa had nothing in common with them in the beginning, she understood their feelings of loneliness. Willa Cather illustrates through her actions and her writing that she is a gentle woman who possesses understanding and compassion for others.

Through her intelligent, strong and talented spirit, Willa Cather combined her understanding and compassion for others with her own personal experiences to create award-winning literary works. She achieved fame and success and was admired by her readers for the simple beauty and dept of her stories. Willa Cather was a remarkable woman who displayed gentility through her compassion for others as shown through her many literary masterpieces.