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Neighbor Rosicky

Neighbor Rosicky Jill Kincer Facilitator: Keith Studebaker “Neighbor Rosicky” Critical Review I am going to discuss the short story by Willa Cather, “Neighbor Rosicky”. I will be doing such in the form of a critical review looking at such aspects of the story as the summary, thesis with key passages, description of form and content, followed by my personal response to the story. “Neighbor Rosicky” is a short story of an old farmer, Anton Rosicky, reflecting back on his life. Early in the story, when Anton Rosicky is in Doctor Burleigh’s office, he learns that he has a bad heart and does not have long to live. He then returns home, plunges into a chair, and begins to sew. While he sews, Rosicky lets his mind run back over his life. He has many memorable experiences. Rosicky has lived in London, New York, and now in Nebraska. Rosicky, formerly a tailor, now makes a living farming with his children. Rudolph, Rosicky’s oldest son, has some trouble supporting his wife, Polly. Rosicky makes many sacrifices to help Rudolph’s marriage stay together. He loans the family car and gives some money to Rudolph, even though Rosicky is very poor himself. Spring arrives, and his children are busy working the fields. When no one else is around, Rosicky, disregarded his doctors orders, rakes some thistle plants out of one of his alfalfa fields, but the work is too tough on his heart. Rosicky dies the next day. Rosicky also has a wife, Mary, a daughter, Josephine, and another son, John, and three I believe that the central theme that was being conveyed in the story was that of land ownership being the “American Dream”. Anton Rosicky is a Czech who experienced life as an immigrant both in London and New York City and found both lacking. Only in his life on the farm in Nebraska does he find peace and fulfillment. Rosicky had been a tailor in the Old Country and had immigrated first to London, where he was miserable and poor. At age twenty he left London for New York, and for a time he was happy there, becoming “a good workman” (Cather,310) and experiencing the cultural life of the city, including opera and the ballet. As time goes on, however, he becomes restless, yearning for “freedom and wide horizons.” Tellingly, his epiphany occurs on the Fourth of July. Rosicky realizes that cities “built you in from the earth itself, cemented you away from any contact with the ground. You lived in an unnatural world, like the fish in an aquarium who were much more comfortable than they ever were in the sea” (311). For Rosicky the idea of owning land really is a dream, and once he attains it he believes that “to be a landless man was to be a wage-earner, a slave, all your life; to have nothing, to be nothing”(315). Through Anton Rosicky, a character so sympathetically and even heroically drawn, Cather expresses a strong belief in the fundamental part land and land ownership play in fulfillment of the “American Dream”. The contrast between the life of immigrants in the city and in the country is explicit and vivid, and leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind as to which is preferable. In my personal opinion, this was a wonderful use of vivid Another technique Cather uses is flashback. One such example is when Rosicky sits in his chair and reflects on his life. This is the point when we really get a feel for what Rosicky has been through. Why the simple things that he has are so very important to In conclusion, after reading the “Neighbor Rosicky” you get a better respect for the smaller things in life. This story was extremely easy to read as well as to read. It was down to earth and factual. Rosicky was a good man, that raised a good family, and had everything he wanted due to his own hard work. This story is a story about things that have been lost or forgotten over time. Everyone should read this story at least once. Bibliography: Work Cited Cather, Willa. “Neighbor Rosicky” Major American Short Stories. 301-326 Oxford UP, 1994.

Word Count: 707