The Sculptor's Funeral
by Willa Cather
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See Also
- Theory of Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
- Willa Cather (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- Willa Cather (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)
- Willa Cather (Identities & Issues in Literature)
- Willa Cather (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition)
- Willa Cather (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Willa Cather
- First Published: 1905
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: The late nineteenth century
- Setting: Sand City, a small Kansas town
- Characters: Harvey Merrick, Jim Laird, Philip Phelps, Henry Steavens, Annie Merrick
- Genres: Short fiction, Satire
- Subjects: Values, Art or artists, Death or dying, Small-town life, Materialism
- Locales: United States, Kansas, North America
The Story
Harvey Merrick, a distinguished sculptor, has died of tuberculosis at the age of forty. As the story opens, a group of townsfolk waits for the arrival of the night train that is bringing Merrick’s body back from the East for burial in the small Kansas town where he grew up. The conversation among those waiting reveals the small-mindedness of their assessment of Merrick. When the train pulls in, Jim Laird, a local lawyer, drunk as usual but seemingly the only person who has a real purpose in being at the station, leads the group of waiting men to the express car....
(The entire page is 1731 words.)
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