To Be a Man in a Man's World

by Erin Nooney

             In the late 1800s, America was a place where men held the power in society and women tried to find their independence within this masculine world. How were women supposed to compete in a man’s world? Men held power, “a word fittingly associated with a kingdom and one customarily gendered masculine” in this world (Stout 59). They were also not deemed to be intellectually compelling, nor have the capacity to hold intelligent conversations. Sharon O’Brien in Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice stated that “slaves to domesticity, women could not converse intelligently when they congregated because they could not ‘leave their family affairs behind them’” (123). Willa Cather tried to break the mold and compete against men and have power by trying to become a man.

 Cather cut her hair short enough to resemble a man’s and even wore trousers and ties. She embodied a man while still in a woman’s body. Willa Cather wanted to personify the male to such extremes that she signed her letters William Cather (O’Brien). But Cather was lying to herself while she tried to embody the man and become “just plain Billy” (O’Brien 121). Willa Cather was even known to have romantic emotional (never proven physical) relationships with women. She was a woman, a lover of the arts, possibly homosexual, and she just wanted to distinguish herself in society as an independent woman. Cather wanted to make herself known in a society that disregarded the individuality of women. So in order to establish herself, Cather felt as if she had to lie to become something in society. Cather was not the “man” that society was looking to accept, and neither was her tragic hero Paul in one of her most famous short stories, “Paul’s Case.”

            Paul was an effeminate boy who, like Cather, was a lover of the arts. He just wanted to experience the beauty of the world, but because Paul was a male, this was not deemed as acceptable. Paul can be seen as a parallel to Cather herself. He, like Cather, also had to lie about his “identity.” In order to be accepted in society, Paul had to pretend to like school, work with his father, and even arguably, women. Unfortunately for Paul, he could not accept living his life as a lie, so he decided to commit suicide. It makes sense that Paul was the fictitious voice of Cather due to the fact that she wrote “Paul’s Case” while she was experimenting with her male persona, William. “Paul’s Case” was an example of Cather’s fears in society. She feared non-acceptance in the masculine-dominated society and feared trying to be the theater loving, homosexual woman that she actually was while trying to gain respect as a man.

            Willa Cather was a complicated, complex individual, as was her character Paul. They were both trying to become men in a world where their kind of man could not exist. They were conflicted with their identities, and Paul unfortunately could not find acceptance with himself. But Cather became a voice for individuals and characters who were as conflicted as she, and for that she is a celebrated author of the uncertain individuals who are just trying to find their belonging in society.

Works Cited:

O’Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. Oxford University Press: New York. 1987.   

            Print.   

Stout, Janis P. Willa Cather: The Writer and Her World. University Press of Virginia:

Charlottesville. 2000. Print.