The Sculptor's Funeral

The town symbolizes the collective social expectations that paradoxically protect and condemn the townspeople. The only physical description of the town is of the Merrick homestead, which is falling into decay on its exterior, having been beaten into disrepair by the elements. Within, the house is decorated by excessive displays of materialism, such as “fat plush upholstery […]; hand painted china plaques and panels and vases” (331). Meanwhile, the room itself is “unheated” and “smelled of dampness and disuse” (331). This contrast suggesting the shallowness and inconsistency of the townspeople; they display the trappings of financial security and middle-class stability but lack warmth and are decayed at their cores. Willa Cather develops this symbolism further through a motif that depicts the townspeople as a single entity as they rely upon one another for protection from life on the prairie. Individual townspeople occasionally “[shuffle] out from the group” (329), but the men lack any sense of individual identity. She also describes the group in increasingly derogative terms such as “uneasy,” “awkward,” and “stoop-shouldered.” The cumulative effect of this imagery is off-putting to outsiders, such as Steavens. The depiction of the town and the townspeople illustrates the conformity that the danger of life on the frontier cultivates and contributes to the theme of The Artist Against Society by framing the artist as an outsider.