It had begun to grow dark when my household
returned, and grandmother was so tired that she went at once to bed. Jake and I got
supper, and while we were washing the dishes he told me in loud whispers about the state
of things over at the Shimerdas'. Nobody could touch the body until the coroner came. If
anyone did, something terrible would happen, apparently. The dead man was frozen
through, 'just as stiff as a dressed turkey you hang out to freeze,' Jake said. The
horses and oxen would not go into the barn until he was frozen so hard that there was no
longer any smell of blood. They were stabled there now, with the dead man, because there
was no other place to keep them. A lighted lantern was kept hanging over Mr. Shimerda's
head. Antonia and Ambrosch and the mother took turns going down to pray beside him. The
crazy boy went with them, because he did not feel the cold. I believed he felt cold as
much as anyone else, but he liked to be thought insensible to it. He was always coveting
distinction, poor Marek!
The above
passage illustrates techniques that are particular to Willa Cather. First, Cather
utilizes imagery. The idea of cold permeates this paragraph with references to the
frozen body and the chill in the air, but this relates, of course, to the cold,
stiffness of Mr. Shimerda's body and the cold cruelty of the prairie winters in
general.
Another technique is that of the metaphor of a
turkey. His body is compared to the hanging out of a turkey to freeze. This
comparison diminishes the importance of the body even though its proper burial is
necessary to the family.
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