How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, full of the smell of the hay fields. Sounds of laughter and splashing came up from the pasture, and when the moon rose rapidly above the bare rim of the prairie, the pond glittered like polished metal, and she could see the flash of white bodies as the boys ran about the edge, or jumped into the water. Alexandra watched the shimmering pool dreamily, but eventually her eyes went back to the sorghum patch south of the barn, where she was planning to make her new pig corral. (1.3.56)
Okay, so things aren't all that bad. O Pioneers! has no shortage of pastoral passages like this one, in which the prairieland appears warm and inviting.
Quote #5
For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. (1.5.3)
And then there's that whole thing about the Divide's "Genius." What's up with that? The narrator's vision of the Divide often instills the land with the qualities of a superhuman or deity. And like many gods, the Divide brings both abundance and misery.
Quote #6
There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the season, holding nothing back. Like the plains of Lombardy, it seems to rise a little to meet the sun. The air and the earth are curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath of the other. You feel in the atmosphere the same tonic, puissant quality that is in the tilth, the same strength and resoluteness. (2.1.3)
Not only does the land appear like some sort of god, it also seems to mirror the youth and vitality of its human inhabitants. Here, it's hard not to think about the budding romance between Emil and Marie.