Plot Summary

Willa Cather's novel One of Ours, winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, tells the story of the life of Claude Wheeler, a native of Nebraska around the turn of the 20th century. Son of a successful midwestern farmer and an intensely pious mother and guaranteed a comfortable livelihood, Claude Wheeler nonetheless views himself as a victim both of his father's success and of his mother's excessive restraint. Willa Cather photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1936 Willa Sibert Cather (December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) is among the most eminent American authors. ... The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ...

While attending State University, Claude meets and befriends the Erlich family, quickly adapting his own world perception to the Erlichs' love of music, free-thinking, and debate. His career at university and his friendship with the Erlichs are dramatically interupted, however, when his father expands the family farm and Claude is obligated to leave university and operate part of the family farm.

Once pinned to the farm, Claude marries Enid Royce, a boyhood friend. His notions of love and marriage are quickly devestated when it becomes apparent that Enid is more interested in pursuing Christian missionary work than she is in loving and caring for Claude. When Enid departs for China for a year to join her missionary sister, Claude takes the opportunity to enlist in the US Army, which has just begun preparations for entry into the First World War. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

Finally believing he has found a purpose in life - beyond the drudgeries of farming and marriage - Claude revels in his freedom and new responsibilities. Despite an influenza epidemic and the continuing degradations of the battlefield, Claude Wheeler nonetheless has never felt as though he has mattered more. His pursuit of vague notions of purpose and principle culminates in a ferocious front-line encounter with an overwhelming German onslaught.

Analysis

The novel is divided thematically into two parts: the first half in Nebraska, where Claude Wheeler struggles to find his life's purpose and is left ultimately disapointed; and in France, where his pursuit of purpose is vindicated. A romantic unfulfilled by marriage and an idealist without an ideal to cling to, Wheeler ironically fulfills his romantic idealism on the brutal battlefields of 1918 France.

One of Ours is thus a portrait of a peculiarly American personality: it is the story of a young man born after the American frontier has vanished, yet whose quintessentially American restlessness seeks redemption on a frontier far bloodier and more distant than that which his forefathers had already tamed.