The Professor's House: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Professor's House" is a novel by Willa Cather that delves into the complexities of its characters, particularly through the lens of Professor Godfrey St. Peter. St. Peter, an accomplished historian, grapples with the discontentment of his new life, feeling trapped by his wife's ambitions and the materialism that surrounds him. His poignant memories of his youth, the friendship with Tom Outland—a brilliant but tragic student—and his scholarly pursuits contrast sharply with the modern world's values.
Tom Outland himself is a pivotal character, whose discovery of an ancient stone city in New Mexico symbolizes a pursuit of authenticity and beauty that starkly opposes the commercialization represented by St. Peter's family, particularly his son-in-law Louie Marcellus, who profits from Outland's inventions. The novel also explores themes of familial tension, ambition, and the loss of integrity in academia, as seen in St. Peter's relationships with his wife Lillian and daughters Rosamond and Kathleen. Each character embodies different facets of societal change and personal aspiration, contributing to a rich narrative that examines the intersection of art, history, and modern life. This analysis provides insights into how individual lives reflect broader cultural shifts, making it a compelling study for readers interested in character-driven literature.
The Professor's House: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Willa Cather
First published: 1925
Genre: Novel
Locale: Hamilton, a Midwestern university town
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: A few years after World War I
Godfrey St. Peter, professor of European history in a Midwestern state university. A scholar, historian, and artist, he is also a sensitive, imaginative man caught between the creativity of his middle years and the prospect of old age. His eight-volume work Spanish Adventurers in North America has brought him fame, the Oxford Prize, and money to build the fine new house his wife desires. Yet he is not happy in his new house or new life, and his enterprising son-in-law's exploitation of another man's invention makes him dissatisfied with material success in any form. During a summer while his family is in Europe, he stays on in the shabby old house he still rents because of its associations with all he values most: his early years as a young husband and father, his friendship with Tom Outland, a brilliant student killed in the war, the writing of his books. There, reading in Outland's diary about the discovery of ancient ruins in the Southwest, he recaptures in memory some of the passion and energy he had known as a boy and while at work on his great history. In the fall, alone in the cluttered attic study of the old house, he is almost asphyxiated by gas from a dilapidated heater. Saved by the timely arrival of the family seamstress, he realizes that his lonely summer has been a farewell to a time when life could be lived with delight. Four themes of corruption and betrayal touch upon St. Peter's story: the success that has made him the victim of his wife's ambition and his older daughter's desire for wealth and luxury; the knowledge that a frontier university, founded to stimulate scholarship of passion and vision, is becoming a refuge for immature minds, its integrity in pawn to a time-serving state legislature; the indifference of government archeologists to Outland's discovery of the mesa city and the sale of its relics to a foreign collector; and the commercialization for private gain of Outland's invention. Behind these stand the symbolic Blue Mesa and the stone city of an ancient culture. A contrast is implied. The people on the rock created a humanized world of beautiful forms and ceremonial richness. Modern America offers only the products of its materialistic concerns to eternity.
Tom Outland, professor St. Peter's former student. Orphaned as a baby, he was taken to New Mexico by foster parents. There, he worked as a railroad call boy and later, while recuperating from pneumonia, as a range rider for a cattle company. Sent to tend herd in a winter camp on the Cruzados River, he and his friend, Rodney Blake, explore the almost inaccessible Blue Mesa and find, preserved under overhanging cliffs, the stone city of a vanished tribe of cliff dwellers. The discovery, filling Outland with awe for something so untouched by time and admiration for the artisans who had built with patience and love, becomes the turning point in his life; here is evidence of the filial piety he had read about while studying the Latin poets with Father Duchene. He makes a trip to Washington in an attempt to interest government officials in excavating his find. Rebuffed, he returns to New Mexico. In the meantime, Blake, thinking that he is helping his friend, has sold most of the relics and artifacts to a German collector for four thousand dollars. Outland and Blake quarrel, and Blake leaves the region. Outland decides to continue his education and goes to see St. Peter because he has read one of the professor's articles. St. Peter takes an interest in the boy, helps him to qualify for entrance to the university, becomes his friend, and makes him almost one of the family. Outland, a brilliant young physicist, discovers the principle of the Outland vacuum, an important advance in aviation. Engaged to Rosamond St. Peter, the professor's older daughter, he wills her the patent on his invention before enlisting in the French Foreign Legion at the outbreak of World War I. He is killed in Flanders.
Lillian St. Peter, the professor's wife, a handsome, capable woman proud of her husband's success but without any real understanding of the spirit that has motivated his career. She tries to renew her youth in innocent coquetry with her sons-in-law.
Rosamond Marcellus, the St. Peters' older daughter, married to the man who has commercialized Tom Outland's invention. Still beautiful but no longer the appealing young girl with whom Outland fell in love, she is interested chiefly in her pretentious new home, her antique furniture, her clothes, and the standing of her husband in the academic community.
Louie Marcellus, an electrical engineer and a born entrepreneur. The first to realize the commercial possibilities of the patent Tom Outland had willed to Rosamond St. Peter, Marcellus has marketed it successfully and made his wife rich. Shrewd but likable, he takes delight in displaying the rare and beautiful things he buys for Rosamond. Professor St. Peter's attitude toward him is a mixture of admiration and ironic amusement.
Kathleen McGregor, the St. Peters' younger daughter, married to a young journalist. In many ways, she has been corrupted most by Tom Outland's invention, for she is unhappy with her own lot, dislikes her sister, and adds to the family tensions.
Scott McGregor, an able journalist who supplements his income by writing “uplift” editorials and a daily rhymed jingle for a newspaper syndicate. Professor St. Peter feels sorry for McGregor because he stands in second place to Louie Marcellus in family affairs, but the professor admires the young man's staunchness and independence. Rosamond dislikes her brother-in-law because she believes that he black-balled her husband when Marcellus was trying to become a member of an exclusive club.
Dr. Crane, a professor of physics, suffering from an illness that requires a series of operations. Although he had not shared in Tom Outland's experiments, he had assisted with some of the laboratory detail. He feels that he has a moral right to some of the money realized from the Outland vacuum but is too proud to demand his share.
Mrs. Crane, his wife. In a painful interview with Professor St. Peter, she asks his aid in obtaining for her husband a share of the royalties from the Outland vacuum.
Augusta, the practical, loyal sewing woman whose dress forms clutter the attic study that Professor St. Peter has shared with her for many years. Arriving to collect a set of keys so that she can open the new house in preparation for the return of the Marcelluses and Mrs. St. Peter from abroad, she finds the professor overcome by gas after the wind has extinguished the flame of the heater. She saves the life that he himself was willing to relinquish.
Professor Horace Langtry, Professor St. Peter's faculty rival. He represents the new generation of teachers, satisfied with lowered standards and active in internal academic politics.
Rodney Blake, a railroad fireman who becomes Tom Outland's friend after the boy protects him from the loss of a large sum of money won in a poker game. He nurses Outland through an attack of pneumonia and later goes with him to ride herd on the cattle range. Together they explore the Blue Mesa. Misunderstanding Outland's interest in the cliff city, he sells the relics they have collected. After the two men quarrel, Blake leaves the region and is never heard from again. Outland tries unsuccessfully to find him.
Father Duchene, a Belgian-born priest who takes an interest in Tom Outland as a boy, teaches him the classics, and helps to explore the Blue Mesa. He has great respect for anything that reveals an enduring culture.
Mr. O'Brien and Mrs. O'Brien, Tom Outland's foster parents during his boyhood.
Sir Edgar Spilling, an English scholar interested in Professor St. Peter's historical research. At a dinner to entertain him, Louie Marcellus has the bad taste to announce that he and his wife Rosamond intend to call their new home “Outland.”