During her lifetime, Laura Ingalls Wilder published eight autobiographical novels about how life was lived on the American frontier in the late nineteenth century. With titles like Little House in the Big Woods (1932) and Little House on the Prairie (1935), Wilder described the delights and hardships of living on the land, without the modern conveniences people living in the twenty-first century take for granted.
The Portrayal of Nature in the Little House Novels
Nature provided many wonders and enjoyments in the form of delicious food, beautiful landscapes and the joys of spring time in bloom. But nature could also be unbelievably callous, taking no account of human endeavours, destroying, in a virtual instant, a year’s labours. Wilder, in her novels describes locust plagues destroying crops, freezing winters that cause near starvation and other extraordinary hardships imposed by nature. Life lived on the land could be very precarious indeed. This sort of lifestyle required not only resilience and toughness, but a philosophical outlook. Frequently in the Little House novels when all is ruined, the Ingalls family must try to extract some positive lesson. Nothing can be taken for granted; frequently the smallest gifts of nature are appreciated as a great bounty.
In the fourth novel, On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937) when the family tries to start anew in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, Pa Ingalls almost has a mental break down after a locust plague destroys the family’s cash crops. Things are made worse by the fact that Pa had wanted to use the crops to pay off debts incurred to build a house. It’s moments like these in the Little House books that give them their realism and authenticity.
Laura as Career Woman and Proto-Feminist
These Happy Golden Years (1943) is the last novel in the Little House series, and ends fittingly with Laura accepting Almanzo Wilder’s hand in marriage. Most of the novel describes Laura’s growing independence (she’s now fifteen), which comes by way of her taking up work as a teacher at Brewster settlement. Laura dreads teaching and to make matters worse, the family she must board with are not particularly hospitable. Yet with encouragement from her always supportive father, Laura sticks out the teaching assignment. The rewards are financial, and Laura is soon taking on other jobs to earn money.
The second half of the novel shows Almanzo Wilder’s gentle yet persistent courting of Laura. Quite bluntly, Laura tells her future husband that she is not romantically interested. Almanzo is not put off, and continues to charm Laura with joy rides in the snow and a kindly nature. Laura eventually agrees to marry Almanzo, but on the stipulation that she does not have to say she will obey him during the wedding ceremony.
These Happy Golden Years makes for a perfect ending to the Little House series. The novel is filled with music (Pa Ingalls, his fiddle, songs and singing) and optimism about the future. There is also a faint feminist theme, as Laura faces her worst fears about working in the world, realizes her power as a money earner and worker, and sets down a condition of basic independence for her marriage.
The Little House series provides a most remarkable picture of pre-modern life. Wilder’s great gift is to show restraint, lightness of touch and a fidelity to memory in her re-imagining of frontier life for modern readers.
Source
- Ingalls Wilder, Laura. These Happy Golden Years. Harper Collins, 1943. ISBN: 978-0060581879
Chris Saliba - Chris Saliba is a freelance writer. Read more of his workplace articles at chrissalibafreelancewriter.blogspot.com
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