Willa Cather’s "Neighbor Rosicky" (1928, 1932)

Discussion Questions:

1.) How does this story explore some of the common literary conflicts we studied during the previous literary period? (For example, country vs. city, insider vs. outsider, East vs. West, women vs. men, etc.)

2.) Does this story introduce any common literary conflicts that we have not yet studied, or does it emphasize, in a new way, some of the conflicts mentioned in question #1?

3.) Does the setting play a role in this story? If so, how? Is it a significant part of the story? Does the setting function as a “character” in this story?

4.) The story begins and ends with Doctor Ed. How is this significant?

5.) Two important passages involve the graveyard. How is this significant?

6.) Is the character of Rosicky too good to be true? Is he a “romantic” character? Is he too naive? What qualities distinguish him (in comparison to his neighbors, for example)? Does he change, grow, evolve over the course of the story?

7.) How about the other characters? (Evaluate them as artistic creations rather than as real people.)

8.) How are Rosicky’s flashbacks to his past experiences in London and New York significant?

9.) What is significant about the Rudolph and Polly relationship? What is Rudolph’s role in this story? What is Polly’s role in this story? Does she change or grow? If so, how and why?

10.) Why the repeated references to Rosicky’s eyes and hands?

11.) The introduction to Cather mentions that her works might "encode a lesbian sensibility” (p. 726). Do you agree? Does this lesbian sensibility have any effect on this short story? Do you sense elements of Cather’s homosexuality in this story?

12.) Based on this story (and on other works by Cather if you are familiar with them), what makes Cather such a popular author?

13.) How would you “classify” Cather -- A latter-day realist? A naive regionalist or local-colorist? A naturalist? A pioneer of an American lesbian sensibility? An anti-Freudian sentimentalist? An austere modernist of the Great Plains?

14.) Evaluate the ending of the story: does it work? For example, why does Rosicky have to die? Or, why does it end with Dr. Ed?

15.) What is the plot or suspense in the story? What is the essential source of tension or conflict?

16.) What would you say is the major theme in this story? What are other possible themes?

17.) What “works” for you in this story?  What doesn’t “work” for you?