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One of Ours | Overview

Willa Cather’s novel One of Ours is a complex, slow-moving, but beautiful character study set before and during World War I. It follows Claude Wheeler as he passes from youth to manhood and from naïveté to knowledge. Although Cather follows other characters for brief times, she does so primarily to round out her portrait of Claude’s world. At each stage of his quest for selfhood, Cather shows the context of Claude’s life in intricate detail. His family and the surrounding Nebraska farmland shape him in the novel’s first half; the surrounding troops and the ship carrying them to war form him in the last half. The patriotism of Claude and his fellow soldiers, as well as their innocent (and at times ignorant) desire to do good deeds, makes the war effort seem like a noble cause. However, it ends—as real war always does—with death, leaving Claude Wheeler and the novel as a whole suspended in a state of emotional incompleteness and pain.

One of Ours Summary

One of Ours is made up of five books. Book I, “On Lovely Creek,” introduces the young Claude Wheeler in small-town Nebraska. Claude visits a traveling circus with friends and then goes back to school at Temple, the religious college he is attending in Lincoln. While there, he adds special classes in European history at the nearby state college and plays football for Temple. This allows him to make friends with new boys, and he begins to explore new intellectual worlds. Two girls show interest in Claude while he is at school, but he does not get involved with either of them. College is going well, but then his father buys a new ranch in Colorado. While Mr. Wheeler runs the ranch, Claude is left in charge of the family’s Nebraska farm. Even though it means giving up his studies, Claude pours his energy into his new position.

Book II, “Enid,” follows the next change in Claude’s life, which culminates in his marriage to Enid Royce. It begins when his father sends him to Colorado to see the new ranch. The distance makes Claude feel exceptionally lonely, and once he is back in Nebraska, he begins to visit the mill to see Enid. Their courtship is fairly slow until they get caught in the rain while driving and Enid drives them closer to home. Soon after that, Claude gets stuck by a barbwire fence and falls ill. Enid tends to him, and Claude falls in love with her. When he proposes, Enid says... » Complete One of Ours Summary