Tommy, the Unsentimental

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Tommy, the Unsentimental is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in August 1896. [1]

Willa Cather American writer and novelist

Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I.

Home Monthly was a monthly women's magazine published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the late 19th century.

Contents

Plot summary

Jay works in Thomas Shirley, Sr's bank until his relationship with Tommy gets strained and he is sent to Red Willow, another town some twenty miles north. Tommy goes to college in the East, then comes back. One day, Tommy receives a telegram asking her to come and help him as there is trouble at the bank he is working. She bikes there with Miss Jessica but leaves her on the way as the other woman is tired and they don't have time to wait. When she gets there, she solves the problem and tells him he should marry Miss Jessica, as she feels for him. He protests, saying he feels for her, not Jessica, but she laughs away the suggestion.

Characters

Wyoming State of the United States of America

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the 10th largest by area, the least populous, and the second most sparsely populated state in the country. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho and Montana. The state population was estimated at 577,737 in 2018, which is less than 31 of the most populous U.S. cities including neighboring Denver. Cheyenne is the state capital and the most populous city, with an estimated population of 63,624 in 2017.

Allusions to actual history

Ghost Dance new religious movement

The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka, proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples throughout the region.

Wovoka 19th and 20th-century founder of the Ghost Dance movement

Wovoka, also known as Jack Wilson, was the Paiute religious leader who founded a second episode of the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.

Wounded Knee Massacre massacre

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota.

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References

  1. ↑ Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 November 1970, page 480
  2. ↑ Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 November 1970, page 479
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