Substance

My Mortal Enemy

I appreciated Howe's notes on My Mortal Enemy in several ways. First, I liked the term he used of the 'internal narrator' and how he/she may or may not be speaking for the author. I agree with his assessment that Nellie was a reliable narrator. I appreciated that he pointed out she is telling the story in retrospect, so that there is some “hindsight wisdom” that flavors how the story is told. I also agree with Howe that she serves to express the author's views and judgments. From what I know about Willa Cather's life, she moved to the plains as a child and grew to fiercely admire, as reflected in her books, the independent women of many nationalities she encountered there. I think that growing up in the rather bleak and raw environment of the frontier probably shaped her view of realism; one not insulated from reality by old societies back east.

I also appreciated Howe's definition literature as “of serious writing that tries to get at truth – is often disturbing” (p. 397). I think that fluff – romantic novels with fairy tale endings – provides comfort and distance from sometimes harsh reality. His assessment of the romanticism of Myra being approached by by the author “with a deep skepticism” (p. 397) certainly accurate. Again, I believe this goes back to Cather's upbringing with pioneer women and perhaps her observance there of “life being what is is, there's a good chance things will go wrong” (p. 397).

My favorite part of Howe's analysis is of the last part of the novella, where the Henshawe's have fallen on hard times and Myra is dying. Myra has been a fighter: against her uncle's forbidding her to marry Oswald; fighting and caring for her friends; fighting for appearances such as when she forbids Oswald to take a “small position” (p. 427) that is beneath him. In her older years Myra looks back with regret, and yet also finds peace “by surrendering to the natural world” (p. 401).

I do question Howe's assumption that the last sentence allows the reader to “forgive Myra for her overbearing petulence” (p. 401). I didn't feel the need to forgive Myra. I understood that by her very nature she made the choices and took the paths that she did. She was a strong willed women, in many ways overbearing her husband. Myra is tragic in that she has regrets and regards herself as her own mortal enemy; a character who is done in by her own weakness. Oswald asserts that he doesn't regret his path with her: “I'd rather have been clawed by her . . . than petted by any other woman I've ever known” (p. 444). They both made a bargain and lived with the consequences. There is nothing to forgive.

Cather, Willa. My Mortal Enemy. Classics of Modern Fiction. Edited by Irving Howe. Heinle & Heinle, United States. 1993. Print.