Short Stories Research Paper

8/6/2019 Short Stories Research Paper

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Lorraine Oyola

Mrs. Prato

Period 1 English 3 H

March 4, 2010

Women: Known Lifestyle or Marriage


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Mundane women usually put others before them. Its like this usual habit that grows in

them. In Willa Cathers A Wagner Matinee, optimism is not prevailed in aunt Georgies rural

life; unlike in Cathers Nanette: An Aside, Nanette does view optimism to be ubiquitous under

one condition. . During the Modern Era, women constantly had to choose between a love

marriage and being able to continue their lives as they had it.

A Wagner Matinee tells the story of a 30 year old woman, Georgie, who met a young

21 year old and fell in love with him. Obviously, her family and friends did not really approve of

their relationship so she had come to the onus of having to choose the path she wanted to

continue. Did she want to keep playing the piano as talented as she was throughout Bostons fast

paced musical life or did she want to live a simple yet happily ever after marriage? The narrator,

her nephew, informs about the choice she made, eluding the reproaches of her family and the

criticism of her friends by going with him to the Nebraska frontier (Everybody's Magazine,

325). Her heart took over and led her to a rural life in an eighty acre homestead with the man she

would be spending more than thirty years. When Aunt Georgie makes a trip back to the Boston

city to run an errand, her nephew takes her to a concert and thats when she reminisces the old

melodic times of her youthful years. She cried very gently throughout the concert and towards

the end when everyone was already leaving the halls, she cried, "I don't want to go, Clark, I don't

want to go!" (Everybody's Magazine, 328). She did not want to leave because she knew that

when she left, she had to forget all of it and go back to her married homestead life. She knew

what she had left behind and what she had to leave behind yet again.

Nanette: An Aside is just that, a girl who serves for a performer, Tradutorri. She is

behind the scenes. Nanette was the daughter of a very talented singer yet a singer who had failed

to climb the ladder towards a brighter future. Tradutorri, a friend of her mothers found her when


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her mother was dying in a charity house. She took Nanette and kept her with her throughout all

her journeys. No one knew Tradutorri like Nanette had learned to. On a performance tour to New

York, Nanette befriended Signor Luongo and eventually they fell in love. The problem was that

Nanette was to leave in two days back to Europe with Tradutorri. Luongo had proposed marriage

to Nanette and Nanette was willing to leave all the trips and riches for the love of her life.

Tradutorri was astonished to find out of her willingness to leave it all behind for a man. To

which Nanette responded from the deepness in her heart, Madame, you know how it is. One

sees much and stops at the best hotels, and goes to the best millinersand yet one is not happy,

but a stranger always. That is, I mean- (Th

e Home Monthl

y, 5). Nanette believes that as long as

one has the person they love with themselves; one does not need money or any kind of luxury to

be truly happy and content in life. Like aunt Georgie in A Wagner Matinee, Nanette also had

to choose between the life she had been used to and to starting a new life as a married woman,

leaving everything behind. Tradutorri ends up leaving Nanette free to marry the young man and

she advises Nanette, Be very happy in it, dear. Let nothing come between you and it; no desire,

no ambition. It is not given to every one. There are women who wear crowns who would give

them for an hour of it (The Home Monthly, 6). That is when Nanettes new chapter in life

began.

This is what many women had to decide on. Willa Cather exemplified the Modern Age

life for young women in America. Jane Addams, rich, yet a woman who dedicated her life to

helping others had been sent to the Rockford Female Seminary College. After finishing, she had

to make a decision herself A woman, she wrote, "was practically faced with an alternative of

marriage or a career." She could enter teaching, or medicine, or missionary work, or else she


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could marry and devote her life to homemaking (The Progressive Era Women). Womens social

life sometimes changed abruptly either for a better future or for a less desirable one.


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Bibliography

y Cather, Willa. "A Wagner Matinee."Everybody's Magazine Mar. 1904: 325-28. TheWilla Cather Archive. University of NebraskaLincoln. Web. 27 Feb. 2010.

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y Cather, Willa. "Nanette: An Aside." The Home Monthly, VIIAug. 1897: 5-6. The WillaCather Archive. University of NebraskaLincoln. Web. 27 Feb. 2010.

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y "The Progressive Era Women." Tahoma. Web. 27 Feb. 2010..

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Short Stories Research Paper