The story focuses on Harvey Merrick, an acclaimed sculptor whose body is returning home to Sand City, Kansas, after a life spent pursuing his art in the Eastern U.S. Unlike most protagonists, Harvey is only described through anecdotes told about him, because he dies of tuberculosis prior to the events presented in “The ...
Steavens is equally appalled by the cheap vulgarity of taste that is everywhere apparent in the decor of the house and can scarcely believe that Merrick could ever have had any connection with this place.
In his climactic tirade against the town's defamation of Harvey, Laird expresses his disgust with the people of Sand City. His death concludes the story, as he passes away from a cold caught on the way “to defend one of Phelps's sons who had got into trouble […] cutting government timber.”
She hysterically throws herself on her sons coffin and begins sobbing. Where is Harvey's body kept when it arrives to Merricks home ? It is kept in the parlor(the living room). What is a mulatto woman ?
Jim returned to Sand City to work as a lawyer, and he regrets doing so. The conclusion of the story states that Jim eventually dies of cold while traveling west to defend the son of a Sand City townsman in court. More summaries and resources for teaching or studying The Sculptor's Funeral.
After Harvey Merrick passes away, his corpse is brought back to the town of Sand City, Kansas where the late sculptor's parents currently reside. The only people who seem to really feel grief over Merrick's death are Jim Laird (Harvey's friend) and Henry Stevens (Harvey's former student).
Society. Willa Cather's short story “The Sculptor's Funeral” explores the relationship between the artist and society. Cather portrays the townspeople of fictional Sand City, Kansas, as unrefined and amoral. Initially, it seems that Cather's scathing descriptions of the townsfolk rely on rural, Western stereotypes.
Sand City, KansasPlot summary In the fictional small town of Sand City, Kansas, the body of Harvey Merrick, a famed sculptor, is brought back to his parents' house. Only Jim Laird, Harvey's old friend, and Henry Steavens, his student, have any real emotion.
Point of View The story's narration is written in the third person and the past tense. The story's main point-of-view character is Henry Steavens, as he is the only character whose thoughts are ever conveyed directly to the reader.
As “the worldwide call for men,” the whistle also represents a call to action. Even in a place like Sand City, they are connected to larger cultural and economic shifts through the expanding railroad system in the U.S. Upgrade to unlock the analysis and theme tracking for all of The Sculptor's Funeral !
He and Harvey went to school in the East together—Jim came home to become the lawyer the town intended him to be while Harvey stayed in the East, becoming the artist he intended to be. Wanting Steavens to remember Harvey as truly he was, Jim speaks up against the townspeople's harsh defamation.
January 1905In January 1905, Willa Cather's story “The Sculptor's Funeral” appeared in McClure's Magazine and shortly thereafter in her first book of fiction, The Troll Garden, a collection of stories about art and artists.