Reimagining Female Agency on the American Frontier: A Comparative Reading of Thomas Eidson’s All God’s Children and Willa Cather’s My Ántonia

The article offers a comparative analysis of female representation in Thomas Eidson’s All God’s Children (1997) and Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918), focusing on the ways in which women negotiate gender expectations, social constraints, ethnic and cultural difference, family responsibility, and the demands of frontier life. Although the novels were written in different historical periods, both construct the American frontier as a space in which conventional gender roles are simultaneously reinforced and challenged. Eidson’s All God’s Children presents Pearl Eddy, a blind Quaker widow who struggles to preserve her farm, raise her four sons, and remain faithful to her principles of nonviolence in a hostile social environment. Her moral authority and practical resourcefulness challenge conventional assumptions concerning female weakness and dependence. The novel also introduces Eiko, whose strength and pragmatism provide another perspective on female resilience and cultural displacement. Cather’s My Ántonia, meanwhile, foregrounds women whose identities are shaped by immigration, agricultural labour, motherhood, economic necessity, and the pursuit of dignity and independence. Ántonia’s physical strength, productive labour, and capacity to create a stable family life complicate conventional definitions of femininity. Other female characters, including Lena Lingard and Tiny Soderball, further expand the spectrum of possible female destinies on the American frontier. Scholarship has particularly emphasized Cather’s treatment of gender roles, female self-definition, immigration, and the relationship between women and place. Using feminist literary criticism, gender studies, and a comparative-historical approach, the article argues that both authors portray women not merely as victims of patriarchal structures but as active agents who negotiate, resist, and sometimes transform those structures. At the same time, the texts reveal the limitations imposed by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and class. The comparison demonstrates that frontier literature can function as a significant space for reconsidering female identity, resilience, labour, morality, and belonging in American culture.