Sutter's Gold: Analysis of Major Characters
"Sutter's Gold: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the life of John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss emigrant who rose to prominence in California during the Gold Rush era. Initially a penniless fugitive, Sutter transformed into a wealthy landowner known as General Sutter, commanding the largest domain in the United States. His ambitious dreams of cultivating a peaceful agrarian life are shattered when gold is discovered on his land, leading to chaos as prospectors overrun his estates. This narrative captures Sutter's complexities, portraying him as both a visionary and a tragic figure grappling with the consequences of his ambition.
Alongside Sutter, the analysis highlights key characters such as Anna Sutter, his abandoned wife who arrives too late to find him in ruin; Judge Thompson, a compassionate magistrate who supports Sutter's claims; and Father Gabriel, a missionary with a deep understanding of the historical and moral dilemmas surrounding Sutter's life. The text also reflects on Jean Marchais, Sutter’s loyal blacksmith, who ultimately meets a tragic end, and Johannes Christitsch, an opportunist seeking to exploit Sutter in his twilight years. Through these characters, the analysis offers insight into the themes of ambition, loss, and the broader implications of the American Dream.
Sutter's Gold: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Blaise Cendrars
First published: L'Or: La Merveilleuse Histoire du general Johann August Suter, 1925 (English translation, 1926)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Switzerland, the United States, and Canada
Plot: Historical
Time: 1834–1880
John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss emigrant to America, a magnificent dreamer and methodical man of action who builds and loses an empire in California. In 1834, he is a penniless Swiss fugitive, vagabond, and swindler named Johann August Suter. He deserts his wife and four children and sails for America. His family has no news of him until he becomes famous as General John Augustus Sutter, one of the richest men in the world, the lord of a vast domain in California. Shrewd in maneuvers and a skillful diplomat, he steers a careful course and maintains good relations both with the Mexican authorities who rule California when he arrives and with the forces of American expansion, which will soon claim California as a new state. By the time of statehood, Sutter owns the largest domain in the United States. His vision realized, with his vast farms flourishing with cotton, rice, indigo, livestock, orchards, and vineyards, Sutter longs to settle back into calm and peaceful cultivation of his choice European vine-stocks. At last, he is ready to send for his wife and children, to live out the fulfillment of his grand agrarian dream of New Helvetia in the garden of America. Then gold is discovered on his land. The ensuing chaos, with the inundation of his lands by gold-mad prospectors, settlers, and squatters, shatters his dream and destroys his farms, forts, estates, and villages. The chaos decimates his family and leaves him a ruined, broken man. Aside from the character traits that mark Sutter with a genius for colonization, he possesses a “profound knowledge of the human heart” and a certain “moral ascendancy.” When his estates are overrun and the filth of gold hunger seems to have polluted all of California, Sutter wonders whether he is guilty of setting it all in motion, whether it is not somehow his fatal flaw, his overweening ambition, that has caused everything. In this phase of his life, Sutter takes on a certain tragic grandeur. He lives out his final years in Washington, D.C., where he is viewed as something of a joke, as the eccentric old madman seeking an impossible justice. Even General Sutter's death is monumental and symbolic: He dies on the steps of the Capitol and its “gigantic shadow” falls over his corpse. Sutter is one of the most compelling exemplars of the glory and the tragedy of the American Dream. His presence in this novel is so engulfing that he is not merely the only principal character but also, strictly speaking, the only character developed at all.
Anna Sutter, Sutter's wife, abandoned by him and left without word from him for fourteen years. She makes the long, difficult journey to join him, with their children, only to find her husband a ruined man. She dies shortly after her arrival in California.
Judge Thompson, a California magistrate who pronounces Sutter's claims valid. One of the few just and civilized men in the raw territory, Thompson befriends the ruined Sutter. He understands and feels compassion for the general's plight.
Jean Marchais, Sutter's loyal blacksmith, one of the few employees of the general who remains faithful through everything. The Frenchman is finally hanged by the gold-seeking rabble.
Father Gabriel, a missionary and protector of the Indians. Eloquent, just, and firm, he is a friend to Sutter and possesses an intelligent and compassionate understanding of the historical anguish of California and Sutter's role in these events.
Johannes Christitsch, the leader of the Herrenhütter of Lititz, Pennsylvania. A relentless intriguer and self-appointed manager of Sutter's affairs in his last years, he schemes to take advantage of the old general.