Hyperbolic references to geologic history are a motif in the novel. For example, in Part 3, Chapter 1, the narrator describes winter in the Divide as if it were an ice age:
One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.
The landscape is not fully dead. The seasons will change within a matter of months, and the "germs of life and fruitfulness" will once more sprout. By exaggerating the climatic effects of winter, likening it to an extinction-level event, the narrator emphasizes just how oppressive the winters can be. This winter in particular is especially difficult for Alexandra because Carl and Emil have both left the Divide (at least for now), and her relationship with her two other brothers has reached a new level of strain. The feeling that she is living in an ice age applies to her social environment as well as her ecological environment.
In fact, instances of this motif in the novel almost always say something about how the human characters are feeling. In Part 1, Chapter 2, the narrator describes how the homesteads on the Divide blend into the landscape to the point that many are difficult to find:
The record of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches on stone left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of human strivings.
This passage suggests that the immigrants who have settled on the Divide are constantly struggling to make their mark on the land, and that the land resists their efforts. The narrator notes how "depressing and disheartening" it is to arrive in a new country and find no signs of human life. It is difficult to believe that there are no signs of human life on the Divide, but the narrator emphasizes the homesteaders' sense of futility by characterizing the land as so difficult to tame that "the record of the plow was insignificant."
Additionally, this passage and other instances of the motif both acknowledge and underplay the history of American Indian peoples in the region. The narrator likens the marks of the homesteaders' plows to "the feeble scratches left on stone by prehistoric races." This passing acknowledgment of other humans who have lived here before immediately places these other humans in "prehistory," and suggests that the "feeble scratches" they left on the place are now so ancient and faint that they are indistinguishable from the marks glaciers have left. In fact, from the 1830s, the Indian Removal policy made genocide and eviction of American Indian peoples from their ancestral lands into a top priority of the United States government. The homesteads on the Divide very recently had different human inhabitants. With this mythic language about "prehistoric races," Cather joins the ranks of many American writers who dealt with the uncomfortable realities of Indian Removal by imagining that all signs of American Indians on the land are in fact as ancient as geological formations. Ultimately, this language suggests that the homesteaders are the next group in line to make their natural mark on the land.
In Part 1, Chapter 5, Alexandra returns with Emil from their visit to the river farms, ready to buy more land and turn a profit. The narrator uses hyperbole to emphasize Alexandra's excitement and investment in the land:
For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning.
Although the Divide is not densely populated, Alexandra can hardly be the first human to look at the land with "love and yearning." Many other immigrants, including her father, have tried to make their lives there. In the 1860s and beyond, the United States government passed a series of legislative acts incentivizing "homesteading," or the establishment of small farms. The laws were in part a reaction to the Civil War: citizens who had never taken military action against the United States were eligible to apply. This included women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship. Some of the legislation even targeted formerly enslaved Black people. Those who had fought for the Confederacy, meanwhile, were ineligible to apply. The laws thus rewarded loyalty to the United States and aimed to cultivate "love and yearning" for country in immigrants and otherwise politically ambivalent people. Meanwhile, the laws aimed to disenfranchise the disloyal. By the time Alexandra decides to buy up the land for the rich opportunity it has to offer, several decades of homesteaders have already looked at the land with "love and yearning."
The passage's focus on a geologic time scale is also important given the long human history of the land. The government's ability to grant homesteads to burgeoning patriots depended on decades of legislation and military action against American Indian peoples who had been tending the land with care and love for many, many generations. In the years between 1857 and 1862, the U.S. government used a series of treaties to force Nebraska-area tribes to move away from their ancestral land to make way for the establishment of homesteads. By the 1870s, the state government was petitioning the federal government to stop recognizing American Indian land rights at all within the state. By abolishing all the remaining reservations and evicting American Indian people from Nebraska, the petition said, the government could create more opportunities for "enterprising and industrious citizens" (such as Alexandra).
Cather's novel is invested in lifting up women as "enterprising and industrious citizens," and that is what the hyperbole in this passage does. By suggesting that Alexandra is the very first human to look at the land and truly "yearn" for the bounty it has to offer, the novel suggests that she is the pioneer of all pioneers, deeply in love with the land and the opportunity it offers. She is a woman and an immigrant, yes, but she is at her core a self-made American. It is important to note that this very idea of Alexandra as a true American depends on the erasure of American Indian peoples and their history.
Hyperbolic references to geologic history are a motif in the novel. For example, in Part 3, Chapter 1, the narrator describes winter in the Divide as if it were an ice age:
One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.
The landscape is not fully dead. The seasons will change within a matter of months, and the "germs of life and fruitfulness" will once more sprout. By exaggerating the climatic effects of winter, likening it to an extinction-level event, the narrator emphasizes just how oppressive the winters can be. This winter in particular is especially difficult for Alexandra because Carl and Emil have both left the Divide (at least for now), and her relationship with her two other brothers has reached a new level of strain. The feeling that she is living in an ice age applies to her social environment as well as her ecological environment.
In fact, instances of this motif in the novel almost always say something about how the human characters are feeling. In Part 1, Chapter 2, the narrator describes how the homesteads on the Divide blend into the landscape to the point that many are difficult to find:
The record of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches on stone left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of human strivings.
This passage suggests that the immigrants who have settled on the Divide are constantly struggling to make their mark on the land, and that the land resists their efforts. The narrator notes how "depressing and disheartening" it is to arrive in a new country and find no signs of human life. It is difficult to believe that there are no signs of human life on the Divide, but the narrator emphasizes the homesteaders' sense of futility by characterizing the land as so difficult to tame that "the record of the plow was insignificant."
Additionally, this passage and other instances of the motif both acknowledge and underplay the history of American Indian peoples in the region. The narrator likens the marks of the homesteaders' plows to "the feeble scratches left on stone by prehistoric races." This passing acknowledgment of other humans who have lived here before immediately places these other humans in "prehistory," and suggests that the "feeble scratches" they left on the place are now so ancient and faint that they are indistinguishable from the marks glaciers have left. In fact, from the 1830s, the Indian Removal policy made genocide and eviction of American Indian peoples from their ancestral lands into a top priority of the United States government. The homesteads on the Divide very recently had different human inhabitants. With this mythic language about "prehistoric races," Cather joins the ranks of many American writers who dealt with the uncomfortable realities of Indian Removal by imagining that all signs of American Indians on the land are in fact as ancient as geological formations. Ultimately, this language suggests that the homesteaders are the next group in line to make their natural mark on the land.
