Discuss the Meaning Alexandra shares personal qualities with her grandfather. What are these qualities and how will they help the Bergson family survive after her father dies? Cite text examples to support your ideas.
Alexandra is the main character in O Pioneers! When the novel opens, she is a young girl of twenty, but already overly serious and emotionally strong for her age. She is the eldest of four children; the others are male. Her father wants her to take over the management of the farm when he dies because he realizes she is the most intelligent and capable of his children, even though he would prefer to give the leadership role to one of his sons.
Alexandra is extremely logical and practical in her thought but she can imaginative and innovative when it comes to business. She succeeds where others fail because she takes chances like putting in a new kind of crop and because she plunges ahead regardless of what people in her community think about her. Yet Alexandra has a mystical relationship with the land. Once she decides to love the land and embrace its natural ways, her struggle ends. She becomes wealthy "by just sitting still" and lets the land make her wealthy
Alexandra is a person ahead of her time. Her brothers will not acknowledge her ability and want credit for making the farm a success because "women should not meddle in business." Her lover Carl cannot bring himself to marry her until she appears needy to him. By presenting these and other issues, O Pioneers! becomes a feminist novel.
