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The Railroad as a Character in The Song of the Lark
By Ruby BernsteinThe lonesome strain of the steam locomotive sounds across the Colorado landscape. Thea Kronborg knows that music well because it represents her
life's metaphor -- the journey from Moonstone to new cities to pursue her passion for artistry through song. The train is an important element that appears throughout Willa Cather's novel. Many
literary critics have pointed out that The Song of the Lark
is a semi-autobiographical work. Cather grew up in Red Cloud, Nebraska, where the forest green railroad station still remains as an important landmark. Similarly, at the beginning of the novel, we learn that in Thea's Colorado hometown "the sidewalk which ran in front of the Kronborg's house was the one continuous sidewalk to the depot, and all the train men and roundhouse employees passed the front gate every time they came uptown" (28).
Importance of Ray Kennedy One of these train men is freight conductor
Ray Kennedy, who actually "conducts" (i.e., directs) Thea out of Moonstone, away from her Swedish Methodist family. Kennedy, an adventurer whose travels took him to the Southwest and to the mining towns of Mexico,
"always regarded railroading as a temporary makeshift until he 'got into something'"(128). His run from Moonstone to Denver took thirteen hours, allowing the self-educated man to read and exchange railroad
stories and songs with his brakeman. According to American railroad history, trains started to enter Denver in the summer of 1870, fifteen years before the opening of the novel. "A stepchild of
fortune," Kennedy loved Thea and admired her family. He was always thinking of her. For example, when she could not take a lamp to her bedroom loft because of the danger of fire, Ray "gave her a railroad
lantern by which she could read at night" (51). But Ray's real generosity came with his death, a death that was foreshadowed (110) when a light engine without warning came around a curve and struck Ray's
caboose when it was only 32 miles from Moonstone. "Every mile of his run, from Moonstone to Denver, was painted with the colours of that hope" (134) which was to take then 17 year old Thea to be his bride.
However, as she ministered to him under the cottonwood tree, he could only say to her, "You know, don't you, Thee, that I think you are the finest thing I've struck in this world?" He left Thea $600, a great
sum of money, with the stipulation that she must spend it on her musical education in Chicago. Thus, in developing Ray Kennedy as an important figure in Thea's adolescence and the pursuit of her dream, Cather lays down
the tracks that guide the course of the novel. To Chicago and Back Thea
boards a train bound for Chicago with Dr. Archie as her benefactor and guide to the big city. Nine months later, after twenty expensive voice lessons, a resolute Thea returns home on the Denver
Express. To save money she sits up all night in a day coach. In the following description, Cather paints the train ride as something that facilitates Thea's focus and drive, "It was only under
unusual or uncomfortable conditions like these that she could keep her mind fixed upon herself or her own affairs for any length of time. The rapid motion and the vibration of the wheels under her seemed to give
her thoughts rapidity and clearness" (195).This long train trip home to Colorado cradles Thea. It provides ample time for her to reflect on her months in Chicago and aspirations: "She realized that
there were a great many trains dashing east and west on the face of the continent that night, and that they all carried young people who meant to have things. But the difference was that she was going to get
them!"(197) In addition to allowing Thea time to dream, the train journey west to Moonstone gives Cather the opportunity to articulate a central theme in many of her novels -- a respect for the limitless possibilities
of America:
This earth seemed to her young and fresh and kindly, a place where refugees from old, sad countries were given another chance. The mere absence of natural boundaries gave the soil a kind of amiability
and generosity, and the absence of natural boundaries gave the spirit a range. Wire fences might mark the end of a man's pasture, but they could not shut in his thoughts as mountains and forests can. It
was over flat lands like this, stretching out to drink the sun, that the larks sang and one's heart sang there, too (199).
Breaking Away Feeling stifled after being back in Moonstone for only one month, a
tougher and older Thea boards the faithful train that takes her away forever from her hometown. Bound for Chicago again, Cather describes, "As the train pulled out, she looked back at her mother and father and
Thor. Then something pulled in her and broke. She cried all the way to Denver, and that night, in her berth, she kept sobbing and waking herself. But when the sun rose in the morning, she was far
away. It was all behind her, and she knew she would never cry like that again"(222).Thea never returns to Moonstone. Instead, with Dr. Archie's financial help, she studies in Germany and becomes an
international opera star. Through the young and wealthy Fred Ottenberg, her new love, she learns about the riches of city life. While Ottenberg pulls Thea further away from her roots, it is he who
orchestrates her introduction to the riches of Arizona's ancient cliff dwellers. Panther Canyon serves as a turning point in the novel as Thea experiences a sort of reintegration of mind and spirit. She is
filled with artistic inspiration and determination. In passages describing Ottenberg's company, Cather employs more railroad imagery. For example, after their stay in Flagstaff, Ottenberg, who adores Thea and
respects her freedom, nonetheless hopes that she will sidetrack her plans and accompany him to Mexico. Cather writes, "They stood by the railing looking back at the sand levels, both feeling that the train was
steaming ahead very fast" (306). Later, after the Mexican sojourn, Thea knows that although she loves Fred, she must not delay her call to study voice abroad. In her dreams, Ray Kennedy's eyes transform into
Fred's and "all night she heard the shrieking of trains, whistling in and out of Moonstone, as she used to hear them in her sleep when they blew shrill in the winter air" (336). It is worth noting that to a
certain extent, Thea's life journey mirrors Kennedy's. Both characters are adventurers who travel on trains to the Southwest and Mexico until they "got into something." By 1906, the railroad is the
biggest industry in America. It whistles its way over Cather's American landscape, creating opportunities that transform people's lives. It carries The Song of the Lark's characters from Moonstone to
Chicago, from Chicago to Arizona, from Denver to New York, transporting Thea Kronborg towards her successes. Quotations taken form Signet Classic version of The Song of the Lark. Click Here to go to a related Lesson Plan Ruby Bernstein currently teaches at Laney College in Oakland, California. |
