“On the Gull’s Road”: Bridging the Gap between Eras

Written over a century ago in 1908, Willa Cather’s short story “On the Gull’s Road” tells a traditional tale of forbidden love in a romantic, ethereal tone which conjures up feelings of serenity, passion and lost love. Though 1908 is technically a part of the Modernist era, it still holds firm to many of the ideals of the Victorian Era which preceded it.  Propriety was not only expected but seen as a desirous trait, especially in the women of the era. This is the case for Cather’s character Alexandra Ebbling, a young, dying woman journeying upon a ship set for New York. To fall in love with someone who is not one’s husband is an unfortunate event in a time when cheating was not taken lightly. For Cather, the melancholic turmoil which goes hand-in-hand with forbidden love makes for the perfect metaphor: the vast ocean, beautiful and welcoming in nature, ultimately serves as a barrier between Mrs. Ebbling and the known world of both love and society. It is the ways in which Cather chooses to portray this love, both through imagery as well as linguistically, which makes for an intriguing and fresh perspective on literature of the era.

Telling a story which occurred over twenty years prior, the unnamed narrator tells of a deep love which was once harbored for a woman, the aforementioned Mrs. Ebbling. Cather’s omission of the unnamed narrator’s gender has sparked many debates among literary critics. Some find that the narrator is a young man, while others hold to the idea that “On the Gull’s Road” is Cather’s own early, avante-garde contribution to the lesbian literary canon. This argument is not without merit, as the narrator is not only unnamed but also unmarked by any pronominal form. One scholar who dares to side with the opinion that this short story is lesbian in nature, asserts that “where the story appears to inhabit the conventions of a checked and melancholy heterosexual love, it does not inhabit them evenly or fully plausibly, but neither is it easily translated as a lesbian tale” (Butler 57). The important aspect surrounding Butler’s commentary is that, whichever opinion a reader may hold on the issue, there technically exists no right or wrong answer. 

What Cather has done with this story is to effectively eliminate the need for gender recognition. She has isolated love to its purest and most vulnerable form; she has created a portrait of true love without boundaries. The imagery of the ocean fits in appropriately with this theory. Just as Butler has suggested, the purity of the love between Mrs. Ebbling and the narrator can be compared to the ocean: vast, mysterious, and, when gazed upon from the perspective of a ship passenger, it seems as if it exists eternally. In one of many descriptive passages, Cather paints a picture of their isolation: 

[...] though our course held very near the shore, not a village or habitation was visible; there was not even a goatherd’s hut hidden away among the low pinkish sand hills [...] Not a wave broke on that fringe of white sand, not the shadow of a cloud played across the bare hills. In the air about us, there was no sound but that of a vessel moving rapidly through absolutely still water. (84-85)

The immensity of the ocean paired with the impenetrable silence of isolation works well to translate a specific feeling of amorousness to the story’s reader. In the passage quoted above, it is important to highlight the detail that the ship is traveling “rapidly.” This rapid movement can be likened to the fleeting life of Mrs. Ebbling. As is stated in the story, Alexandra Ebbling is burdened with a serious heart condition which, she knows, will soon take her life. Because of this, Mrs. Ebbling is forced into a delicate and vulnerable position. She must live out the rest of her life, whatever little is left, knowing that she can not plan and dream of her future. The love of which the narrator speaks now has two major barriers working against it: the woman that he or she loves is married and, even if she wasn’t, she is painfully aware of her own mortality, thus making it emotionally impossible for her to dream of a life beyond its current parameters.

While the ocean serves as an apt and appropriate metaphor for the boundless nature of the aforementioned notion of gender-neutral love, it is also important to examine the other ways in which the ocean, and Cather, may have intended the story to be perceived. One of Cather’s friends, Sarah Orne Jewett, wrote a letter to Cather in which she applauded her depiction of of Mrs. Ebbling and her admirer in “On the Gull’s Road” by offering that “the lover is as well done as he could be when a woman writes in the man’s character – it must always, I believe, be something of a masquerade” (emphasis mine, qtd. in Nettels 146). Here, Jewett alludes to a significant hole in the aforementioned theory of controversial lesbian love. If, as Jewett proclaims, the “lover” is a man, then the question must be asked: why did Cather knowingly eliminate all pronouns and allusions of gender in regard to the narrator?

Jewett insinuates that Cather’s male narrator is not nearly as authentically masculine as he should be. From a writing standpoint, this is not entirely surprising considering the fact that the character is, indeed, written and created by a female writer. Another critic “sees the transposition of gender as a ‘literary masquerade’ which liberates the author from prescribed gender roles and allows her or him to achieve wholeness through identification with the other sex” (Nettels 149). This theory seems to ride the centerline between both aforementioned theories. In this case, it is asserted that Cather mindfully chose to writer “On the Gull’s Road” sans pronominal distinction for the sole purpose of eliminating the gender restrictions that often come with writer’s “masquerading” as a character from the opposite sex. 

Aside from the mysterious gender neutrality aspect of the story, Cather does utilize imagery and plot to generate a portrait of the traditional and moral values of the time in which she lived. Cather pays homage to the matrimonial ideals of the time period by saying that “[Mrs. Ebbling] never talked about taking leave of things” and, when presented the scandalous option of running away and starting fresh with the narrator, she asserts that “‘[Mr. Ebbling] has more to complain of than I have, and yet he bears with me. I am grateful to him, and there is no more to be said’” (88, 90). Mrs. Ebbling, however much younger and more attractive than her husband, stays true to the traditional sacrament of marriage and all that it entails. Scandal and deception were never an option for her, but the flirtation and dreams that endured, if only for the duration of a ship’s journey, gave her a similar satisfaction.

Coming off the heels of the Victorian era, a time filled with obligation and strict attention to gender roles, and moving into the Modernist era, Cather provides the perfect companion piece to coincide with this literary shift in genre. By experimenting with gender, even if only by generating a buzz of mystery, Cather bravely leaps into the new era, forging a new path for the writers to come after her. While leaping forward, however, Cather masterfully manages to keep one foot firmly placed in tradition, successfully bridging the gap between two eras, as if by connecting two islands by a vast, eternal sea.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. "Withholding the Name: Translating Gender in Cather's "On the Gull's Road"." Modernist Sexualities. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000. 56-71. Print.

Cather, Willa. Willa Cather's collected short fiction, 1892-1912. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. Print.

Nettels, Elsa. Language and gender in American fiction: Howells, James, Wharton, and Cather. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997. Print.