Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sculptor’s Funeral, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Artist vs. Society
Judgment
Success, Money, and Materialism
Homecoming
Summary
Analysis
Waiting for the evening train to arrive, a group of townspeople stand together on a station siding in a “little Kansas town.” They move together with militaristic unity, marching in place as they shield themselves from the cold. Standing apart, one individual from the “company” paces with purpose that the aimless others seem to lack.
The reader is first introduced to “the company” of townspeople (rather than as individuals) to show the united front that the dead man faces coming home, even after passing away. Even the word “company” has militaristic connotations. Jim waits separately, which allows the reader to infer that he is markedly different and removed from the other townspeople.
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A man dressed in a worn-out Grand Army suit slowly separates himself from the group and approaches the pacing, red-bearded man, Jim, with “a certain deference.” The Grand Army man wonders aloud if anyone from the East will be accompanying the corpse, deciding it is rather unlikely. Though Jim seems uninterested in continuing this conversation, the Grand Army man prattles on anyway, expressing his opinion that it would have been better for a man of “some repytation” to have belonged to an order or society, so he would have a nicer, more respectable funeral.
By assuming that nobody is coming with Harvey’s body, the Grand Army man insinuates that nobody from the East cares enough about Harvey to bring his body home. Kansas, at the beginning of the 20th century, was still a primarily agrarian economy, just beginning to feel the effects of the Second Industrial Revolution. Kansas’s economy was struggling as factory work compelled more and more people to move eastward. By modifying the word “repytation”—or reputation—with “some,” the Grand Army man leaves it up to the reader to interpret the dead man’s reputation as good, bad or otherwise. It is clear, however, that the Grand Army man judges the funeral arrangements as less than adequate. Jim’s disinterest in this conversation barely dissuades him, which demonstrates that the townspeople are eager to share their opinions of the dead man, regardless of their audience.
Themes
The train whistles in the distance, “that cold, vibrant scream, the world-wide call for men,” inviting the younger boys, who as of yet have shown no interest, to take part in the evening’s events. Just like it “stirred the man who was coming home tonight” when he was a boy, the train’s whistle “stirred [the boys] like the note of a trumpet.”
The young men remain separate from the older townsmen at the station, until they hear the train’s distant “scream.” An indicator of anything coming or going from town, the whistle represents the young men’s potential as they are likely of the age where they will either decide to stay in their small town, or to seek opportunity elsewhere. As “the worldwide call for men,” the whistle also represents a call to action. Even in a place like Sand City, they are connected to larger cultural and economic shifts through the expanding railroad system in the U.S.
Themes
The townspeople watch as the train approaches. It winds around the river by poplars that “sentineled the meadows, the escaping steam […] blotting out the Milky Way.” Jim steps up to the platform, and the rest of the townspeople hesitantly do the same. After the train stops, the express messenger and a young man appear in the doorway. The young man asks if any of Mr. Merrick’s friends are present to collect his corpse. Phelps, the banker, replies that Mr. Merrick’s father is too weak to be out on a winter night, so the responsibility has fallen to the townspeople to bring the body to the Merricks’ home.
The snowy, wintry setting that awaits Harvey’s body outside the train mimics the emotionally cold homecoming offered to Harvey by the townspeople. After two pages of the sculptor remaining nameless, Steavens uses Harvey Merrick’s name for the first time. Inquiring about Harvey’s friends, Steavens learns about Harvey’s relationship to the town alongside the reader. By sidestepping Steavens’s question about Harvey’s friends, Phelps subtly situates the townspeople as adversaries of Harvey Merrick. Without friends or family to receive his body, Harvey is coming home the judgment of the town.
Themes
Get the entire The Sculptor’s Funeral LitChart as a printable PDF.
After the coffin is removed from the train, the townspeople circle around it, silently inspecting the palm leaf that adorns its black cover. Looking for someone in the group who seems like “enough of an individual to address,” the student of the sculptor who had accompanied the body (later revealed as Steavens) inquires if any of Harvey’s brothers are in attendance either. Jim informs him “the family is scattered.” He adds that they weren’t sure if anyone would be accompanying Harvey’s corpse. Steavens rides with the undertaker in the hearse up to the Merricks’ home—a weatherworn house with a yard containing “the same composite, ill-defined group” of townspeople waiting to be let into the house.
The people of Sand City aren’t really aware of what Harvey’s life was like in the East. They don’t know if he had close friends there who would accompany his body home. It could be that Harvey didn’t inform them about his life—or more likely, the townspeople didn’t care to keep up with information about him once he left. Adorning the coffin’s black cover, the palm leaf is a mark of honor that symbolizes the sculptor’s achievement as an artist in spite of the town’s judgment of him. Ironically, it is this same symbol the townspeople curiously crowd around. They are unable to recognize what the palm leaf means, just as they are unable to recognize Harvey’s success as an artist.
Themes
Before the coffin can be carried into the house, a large woman opens the door with violent emotion, flinging herself onto the coffin. Harvey’s mother explodes in a theatrical display of her grief, but Harvey’s sistersharply chastises her for the unseemly outburst.
Grief can display in many different ways. However, Annie Merrick’s response to the arrival of Harvey’s body reads more like a melodramatic performance of grief than actual sadness. In contrast to their mother’s exaggerated display, Harvey’s sister is the epitome of composure during the funeral proceedings, implying that she may be more sympathetic to the judgments of the critical townspeople than genuinely heartbroken over her brother’s death.
Themes
The pallbearers bring the coffin into the parlor, which is decorated with chintzy china and furnished with overstuffed green upholstery. Steavens thinks that he has perhaps found himself in the wrong family home—he can’t recognize Harvey from anything displayed in the room, until he sees a crayon drawing of a little boy hung above the piano. Then, he feels “willing” to allow people to approach his master’s coffin.
The parlor’s kitschy decorative style indicates Harvey’s parents’ materialistic taste. Art created for art’s sake is denigrated, while decorative, mass-produced art for purchase is obviously held in high esteem. Steavens can’t believe that an acclaimed sculptor like his master could have grown up in such a tackily decorated home. None of Harvey’s artwork is displayed, except a crayon portrait he drew as a boy. Steavens’s reluctant willingness to let anyone approach Harvey’s coffin further highlights Sand City’s unwillingness to reevaluate its opinions of Harvey.
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Mrs. Merrick’s strong face features a long nose, strong eyebrows that nearly touch one another, and “teeth that could tear.” Fearful of her scarred and coarse face, Steavens notices that she “fill[s] the room” in such a way that she “obliterate[s] the men from town, who are “tossed about like twigs in angry water.”
Cather subverts typical gender norms through her violent, almost repulsive, descriptions of Mrs. Merrick. Well within the scope of literary naturalism, Mrs. Merrick is described by the disjointed sum of her parts. Her “teeth that could tear” present a vision of a mother more animal than human, more violent than dignified. If she is capable of obliterating full-grown men, Harvey must have stood no chance against her as a young boy.
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Steavens stands next to a meek-looking “mulatto woman,” who is a servant in the Merrick household. Her face is “pitifully sad and gentle.” She weeps quietly, wiping her eyes on her apron.
Compared to Harvey’s actual mother, Cather describes Roxy with much more sympathy. Steavens feels most comfortable standing beside the woman who displays real (almost maternal) grief, which alludes to Harvey’s strained relationship with his own mother.
Themes
A frail old man comes down the stairs, embarrassed by his wife’s “orgy of grief.” Looking at Annie “as a spaniel looks at the whip,” Mr. Merrick doesn’t even glance at Harvey’s coffin until Annie storms from the room with her daughter following closely at her heels.
Although Cather doesn’t go into great detail about their marriage, it is evident that Mr. and Mrs. Merrick’s unhealthy power dynamic wouldn’t have been beneficial for Harvey during his childhood. Annie’s “orgy of grief” contains vivid imagery evoking excess and hedonism, even when indulging in displays of emotion. Through the “spaniel” simile, the reader comes to understand Mr. Merrick’s abuse at the hand of his wife. He is so consumed by her various foul moods and actions that he is unable to even look into Harvey’s coffin. This can be interpreted as analogy for Harvey’s boyhood—Harvey’s father was likely too overwhelmed by husbandly duties to truly fulfill his fatherly ones.
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When Steavens, Jim, and Mr. Merrick are left alone, Mr. Merrick gazes upon his dead child’s face in his coffin, a face revealing a life so strained that even death is incapable of bringing peace. He mourns his loss to Jim, stating with affection that although nobody could understand Harvey, ultimately he was a “good boy” with a kind and gentle disposition.
Harvey’s physical appearance is only discussed once in the story. Lacking the peacefulness expected of a corpse, in a sense Harvey seems to lack vulnerability amidst the judgment of others, even in death. His alienation from society is evident as his father laments that nobody was capable of understanding his son, portraying the sensitivity Harvey’s mother so crudely lacks.
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Hollering her husband’s name, Mrs. Merrick beckons Martin into the kitchen, leaving the other two men alone. Steavens contemplates “what link there had between the porcelain vessel and so sooty a lump of potter’s clay” or rather, what link existed between his master’s troubled family background and the beautiful artwork he went on to create.
Steavens’s sculpture metaphor aptly fits his master—it is remarkable that a talented artist like Harvey could come from such a toxic environment. This metaphor also posits that the artist as fundamentally at odds with society. Yet Harvey has clearly overcome the limitations of his upbringing to achieve great things—his troubled background matters less than the art it enabled him to create.
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Jim and Steavens overhear a violent commotion coming from the kitchen. Mrs. Merrick is brutally beating the family’s servant, Roxy (the “mulatto woman”), for forgetting to make dressing for the chicken salad. To Steavens’s visible horror, Jim remarks how Harvey’s mother made the boy’s life particularly traumatic growing up. Jim is astounded that Harvey managed to “[keep] himself sweet.”
Indicative of the kind of abuse Harvey must have suffered as a child, Steavens has a difficult time listening to Roxy’s beating. To him, Harvey is more magnificent because he endured this terrible upbringing. For Harvey to have undergone all of that and still have become a brilliant sculptor is something akin to a miracle.
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Jim asks Steavens if Harvey remained an “oyster” throughout his life, explaining that he was a very shy boy. Steavens explains that while Harvey mostly came across detached and “disliked violent emotion,” he believed the best in others while simultaneously distrusting them. Though he came from a troubled background, as a sculptor, Harvey had an abundance of talent: “All this raw, biting ugliness had been the portion of the man whose mind was to become an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions […] Whatever he touched, he revealed its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment and restored it to its pristine loveliness.”
As the only two real friends of Harvey, Jim and Steavens’s discussion of him as an “oyster” is telling. While it may look unassuming from the outside, an oyster often contains a pearl. While alive, Harvey’s relationships with others were often strained, because his childhood made him less trusting. Although unsure of other people, Harvey was confident in his own abilities. He could have become trapped in Sand City, but by moving to the East, Harvey carved a place to be successful in his own right. Harvey’s background was something he had to escape in order to fulfill his artistic destiny; however, like an overlooked oyster’s pearl, Harvey’s artistic talent still existed inside him even if others failed to see it.
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Steavens comes to a conclusion about what the “real tragedy his master’s life” was—and it’s not alcohol, as some of the townspeople have suggested. It was instead “[…] the frontier warfare; the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a desert of newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened and old, and noble with traditions.”
Steavens remarks that the relationship between Harvey and his environment—an environment that enacted as much trauma upon him as his parents did—was “the real tragedy of his master’s life.” This presents Harvey’s values in opposition to those of frontier America at the turn of the 20th century. From Steavens’s perspective, the Western U.S. contains a “sordidness” that New England, “old, and noble with traditions,” does not. It wasn’t Harvey’s fault that he was born in a provincial place like Sand City, but it was a lasting shame he bore with him.
Themes
As more people arrive, Jim excuses himself from Steavens, letting him experience the crowd of Sand City townspeople that had been drawn to Harvey’s death like vultures. The same group that had been waiting for the train enters the parlor, separating into individuals.
The group of townspeople separates into discernable individuals just before they share their opinions about Harvey, suggesting that although they disapprove of the sculptor, he is still holds a particular significance for each person in town. While they presented like a unified front at the train station, once inside the Merrick’s house, each person feels it is their right to pass judgment on Harvey.
Themes
Once certain the family has gone to bed, the Grand Army man asks one of the bankers, Phelps, if Harvey left a will. Phelps laughs the question off, continuing to absentmindedly clean his nails with a pearl-handled knife. Sharing what Mr. Merrick had told him, the Grand Army man relates that prior to his death, Harvey had been doing well for himself.
Even though the reader knows Harvey is an accomplished artist, his finances remain a bit of a mystery. By quickly dismissing the mention of a will, Phelps illuminates Sand City’s focus on material wealth. Their narrow definition of success is contingent upon how much money is in the bank, whereas Harvey’s artistic success requires a much broader consideration of what holds value in the world.
Themes
The other banker, Elder, mentions Mr. Merrick’s financial contribution to Harvey’s success—he mortgaged some of his farms in order to pay for Harvey’s education. Chuckling in agreement, the townspeople listen to the Grand Army man assert that Harvey was always “bein’ edycated.”
If the townspeople’s definition of success is too narrow, then so is their definition of education. Especially for someone from a “little Kansas town,” being educated in the East was a privilege. For Harvey, his elite education betrayed his class. It was unthinkable that Mr. Merrick would use money from his farms (a practical financial endeavor) to fund Harvey’s schooling. But in terms of the townspeople’s estimation of Harvey’s success, this education was a waste, since it only yielded artistic success, not monetary wealth.
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Sparked by the discussion of Harvey’s education, the cattleman argues that Harvey wasn’t “sharp” at all. He shares an anecdote in which as a young man Harvey mistakenly bought adult mules from a man in town, convinced the mules were much younger than they really were.
This anecdote clearly illustrates the importance of perspective when discussing a person’s character. The cattleman’s story is twisted to portray Harvey as dumb for falling for the mule trick. But that same anecdote could easily have been told with Harvey as the innocent victim, swindled by the man trying to pass off his old mules as not yet full-grown.
Themes
The coal and lumber dealer remembers “Harve […] shore was never fond of work” and that the last time Harvey was home, he asked “in his ladylike voice” for help cording his luggage.
The coal and lumber dealer takes a jab at Harvey’s masculinity, because he doesn’t regard sculpting as a real job. “Work” is synonymous with physical labor for this townsperson, and art is therefore no way to make a living. Therefore, he believes there’s no way Harvey had to “work” at his art, even though sculpting is a skill to be honed like anything else. Whereas the educated elite of the Eastern U.S. (like Harvey) are often stereotyped as condescending toward the working class (particularly in midwestern areas like Sand City), here the roles are reversed as this small-town laborer belittles Harvey’s craft.
Themes
Amused by these stories about Harvey, the Grand Army man shares another. He recalls how Mrs. Merrick used to beat Harvey “with a rawhide in the barn for lettin’ the cows git foundered in the cornfield.” Once, Harvey got distracted watching a beautiful sunset “over the marshes,” accidentally letting one the Grand Army man’s best milk cow escape.
Invoking in the same casual story about a cow, the Grand Army man discloses that Mrs. Merrick used to beat Harvey viciously for his mistakes. In his anecdote, the Grand Army man focuses on what he believes to be Harvey’s failings. Even the evening before Harvey’s funeral, the townspeople still actively choose to view him in the worst possible way. Letting that cow escape could have been an accident spurred by Harvey’s deep appreciation for nature, rather than his disregard for work, considering Harvey clearly exhibited hard work in his educational and artistic pursuits.
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According to Phelps, Mr. Merrick should never have allowed Harvey to pursue his education in the East, claiming if Harvey had gone to a business college in Kansas City instead he would have been more successful.
Ideologies around education vary widely based on location and social class. Harvey’s education in the East (and subsequent relocation) represents a class betrayal to those who the educated elite has left behind with their political and economic reform. At the geographic frontier of the westward-expanding country, the people of the Great Plains were not profiting from the technological and industrial advances in the East yet. To Phelps, a banker imbued with Gilded Age greed, education is only valuable as a potential avenue for more money to be made.
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Appalled by the stories he’s hearing, Steavens can’t believe that “the palm on the coffin meant nothing” to the townspeople. He wants to remind them that Sand City wouldn’t even be a recognizable name on a map if Harvey hadn’t grown up there. Recalling his last conversation with his master, when it was clear Harvey wouldn’t recover from his illness: Steavens promised to return Harvey’s corpse home to Sand City. Though Harvey knew it was not “a pleasant place to be lying while the world is moving and doing and bettering,” he suggested to Steavens that perhaps people should return home “in the end.” Certain that the townspeople’s judgment of him will be harsh, Harvey felt that in comparison he wouldn’t “have much to fear from the judgment of God.”
Symbolized by the palm leaf, Harvey’s artistic achievement surpassed the townspeople’s ability to even recognize his talent. By refusing to acknowledge his abilities, the town maintains their narrow view of success. Beyond achievement or victory, the palm also represents martyrdom. So even if Sand City never recognizes Harvey for his contribution to their town’s history or for his artistic success, both of those things still occurred. Harvey’s desire to be buried in Sand City depicts the cyclical nature of life and the strength of home’s pull in death. The reader learns that Harvey predicted the townspeople’s defamation, making him less afraid of God’s judgment after he dies.
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Although he wants to say more about Harvey, whom he liked, the minister only contributes to the conversation that people on Harvey’s mother’s side of the family didn’t live very long lives. He does not feel like he can say anything because “his own sons had turned out badly,” one of which was killed in a gambling house. His body came home on an express train much like the one that brought Harvey’s corpse back to Sand City.
Seemingly the character most capable of judging another, the minister feels barred from contributing more to the town’s censure of Harvey. The minister’s silence can be interpreted as a sign that the townspeople should reevaluate their belief in their absolute right to state their opinions.
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At the cattleman’s moralizing mention of Harvey’s rumored drinking problem, Jim angrily returns to the parlor. Reminding the townsfolk of their similar judgmental behavior at previous funerals, Jim asks multiple rhetorical questions about the unfortunate fates of young men from Sand City, arguing that something is wrong with their town, not the young men they so harshly criticize.
It is implied that Jim is actually an alcoholic, so it makes sense that he gets angry at the town perpetuating these rumors about Harvey, especially with Steavens there. The rhetorical effect of multiple questions in a row builds intensity, forcing the townspeople to reflect inward. Perhaps it is systemic—there is something cursed about a town incapable of raising respectable men.
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Continuing on his tirade, Jim contends that Phelps and Elder are not capable of being role models for this younger generation. These men were “unsuccessful rascals” in their youth, their behavior shaped by a clear preference for money over morality. According to Jim, Harvey is the only successful person to have ever come from “this borderland between ruffianism and civilization” and that’s why everyone hates him so much.
Trying to work within the confines that the elders of Sand City have established, the young men from there were bound to be unsuccessful. The ways their forbearers used to get rich weren’t as effective in the 20th century, leaving these young men on the frontier with an insatiable greed and no honorable means of acquiring wealth. Harvey is the most hated out of all the men whom the town deems unsuccessful, because he triumphed in spite of them.
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Jim draws a comparison between Harvey’s father mortgaging his farms to pay for Harvey’s schooling and Elder accusing his own father of perjury in county court.
Making an example of Elder, Jim gives the townspeople a taste of their own slanderous medicine. Jim reminds Elder that he accused his father of lying in court, making off with most of his father’s money. Though Elder previously disparages Harvey for using his father’s money for school, Elder really isn’t in a position to judge anyone. Jim’s mention of this event illustrates the town’s hypocrisy and greed.
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Jim expresses his and Harvey’s intention of becoming “great men” when they were in school together back East. They both wanted to make the town proud. When Jim came back to practice law, the town required him to cleverly remedy their legal situations—they didn’t want him to be a “great man.” Indicating the town’s widespread corruption, Jim uses the bankers as an example: Phelps wanted new county lines drawn, and Elder wanted to lend money at a high interest rate, amongst other vaguely illicit requests that Jim dutifully fulfilled. Jim asserts that they only feign respect for him because of what he does for them while simultaneously defaming Harvey “whose soul you couldn’t dirty and whose hands you couldn’t tie.”
By leaving Sand City, Harvey escaped the corruption and hypocrisy that would have prohibited him from the pursuit of his art. Jim unfortunately fell into the town’s trap, sticky with societal expectations and small-town manipulations. To Jim, Harvey Merrick is above reproach, because he was able to throw off the shackles chaining him to Sand City. His commitment to art, rather than the pursuit of wealth, makes Harvey a better man than the all the greedy townspeople combined, and their judgment of him thus takes on a hypocritical note.
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Jim contemplates that after all of Sand City’s thievery and deceit, “What have we got to show for it?” He defends Harvey as better than everyone in their “bitter, dead little Western town,” and doesn’t want Steavens to leave Sand City for Boston believing any of the critical statements the townspeople made about the sculptor. Steavens shakes Jim’s hand as he leaves the Merrick home.
A tension exists between who Laird becomes and the ghost of his lost potential. He is very resentful of Sand City’s residents for shaping him into the kind of man who twists the law to suit his needs. Even though Jim feels like he has lost because the townspeople turned him into a “shyster,” it is still important to him that his friend Harvey be remembered as the “great man” that he was, rather than the other townspeople’s defamation of his character.
Themes
The following day, Jim was too drunk to attend Harvey’s funeral services—“The thing in him that Harvey Merrick had loved must have gone under ground with Harvey Merrick’s coffin.” Steavens returns to Boston. Though he left his contact information, Steavens never again hears from Jim. Later, while driving to Colorado to defend one of Phelps’s sons for illegally cutting down government timber, Jim catches a cold that kills him.
Although titled “The Sculptor’s Funeral,” the actual funeral occurs in the final paragraph of the story. Confirming the cyclicality of this narrative, Jim dies on a haphazard legal errand for one of Phelps’s sons. Just as Harvey felt an unseen pull to return home in death, Jim felt compelled to continue helping Sand City townspeople with their legal woes and petty grievances. Their deaths suggest that regardless of whether a person stays in their hometown or leaves in pursuit of greater opportunities, one’s connection to their community and upbringing is a tie that can never be fully severed.
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