The Transformation Of Claude Wheeler In One Of Ours

In the novel One of Ours by Willa Cather, Claude Wheeler is seen as sensitive, smart, and thoughtful. Claude lives on a farm in Nebraska where he gets married to Enid Royce. After a chain of unforeseen events Claude enlists in the army and enters the war. While at war Claude undergoes changes and learns a lot about himself. He transforms from an insecure, unhappy person to someone who is much more confident and content with his life. Despite getting shot and never returning home, Claude benefitted immensely from the experience. Critics might say that this was not a good way to end the novel; they wanted to know what happened when he returned to his old life. One reviewer says that Cather “seems to evade her own problem.” Cather does

He becomes more confident and secure with himself because he meets new people and sees a lot of similarities between them and himself. He also sees different perspectives throughout the world by getting out of Nebraska. In the beginning of the novel when the roof collapses during the snowstorm and many pigs die, Claude is very upset and blames himself for not replacing the roof the previous year. By going away though, he has many different people to compare himself to (as stated above) and that makes him feel better about himself. He sees traits in these young people that are reflective of the person he used to be. He reveals, “he was enjoying himself all the while and didn’t want to be safe anywhere” (page 251). His whole life was safe living on the farm in Nebraska and he felt as though he could never get away or advance in life. He liked the feeling of freedom and being able to experience new things. Ironically, when Claude is offered a drink, he is told to “drink to the kaiser..or anything that got you out of the cornfield” (page 227). Having a drink for the enemy’s leader may seem strange, but fighting the war with Germany is what got him out of his safe life in Nebraska. At home, Claude was always competing with his brothers and his father was very hard on him; because of this, he felt a lack of respect and unappreciation. He doesn’t have that external pressure from his family weighing down on him anymore. He earned respect from

Normally, such an important character would have a tragic death at the end of a novel, but Cather chose to have Claude die in a very different manner: “he was not bleeding very much. He smiled at them as if he were going to speak, but there was a weak blankness in his eyes. Bert tore his shirt open; three clean bullet holes. By the time they looked at him again, the smile had gone...the look that was Claude had faded” (page 367). His death was not tragic nor dramatic, Claude was just simply gone. He was shot three times, yet he was smiling. Earlier in the novel, he says that “the war was life, and everything that went into it. To be alive, to be conscious, and have one’s faculties, was to be in the war” (page 336). Claude had his heart set on the war, and he planned to give up his life to it. He attained much more than he ever could have hoped for though. He was committed to the war and everything it had brought him. I think choosing to have him die while away at war rather than returning home shows us exactly how much the war, and his new life, meant to him. The war was the reason that Claude was able to become a new person, so he was willing to give his life to it. By having Claude smile while he was dying, Cather shows the readers just