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Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Masters Project

Department or Program Affiliation

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Giffen, Allison

Second Advisor

Laffrado, Laura

Third Advisor

Loar, Christopher F.

Abstract

This thesis proposes a new critical framework for reading American literature: the Transfusion Plot, a structural and symbolic model through which narrative progression depends on reciprocal exchanges among body, land, and memory. Drawing on metaphor and materiality, the Transfusion Plot suggests that stories in the American novel emerge—successfully or not—through acts of offering: labor, lineage, emotion, and sacrifice given to soil or withheld from it. The dual meaning of “plot” as both narrative arc and physical land is central to this reading, allowing for deeper insight into how novels negotiate rootedness, inheritance, and rupture.

The project centers on a close reading of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, where the success or failure of plot depends on the characters’ ability to labor meaningfully on and with the land. The Shimerdas arrive without preparation or offering, and the prairie remains closed to them. In contrast, Ántonia’s physical labor becomes the novel’s central transfusion—her bodily commitment to soil generates memory, family, and narrative continuity. Her sweat, persistence, and eventual rootedness form a living arc in which plot, in both senses, is allowed to grow.

Ultimately, the Transfusion Plot offers a vocabulary for reading the American novel through its circulatory systems—where blood, sweat, soil, and story intersect. It repositions land not as backdrop but as participant in the plot’s formation and resolution, inviting new readings of literary inheritance and identity.

Type

Text

Keywords

My Ántonia; Embodied Memory; Plot as Land; Ecocriticism; Labor and Inheritance;

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1523074225

Subjects – Names (LCNAF)

Cather, Willa, ǂd 1873-1947. My Ántonia--Criticism and interpretation.

Subject – LCSH

Ecocriticism; Memory in literature; Land use in literature; Labor in literature; Human body in literature; Immigrants in literature; Symbolism in literature; Metaphor in literature; Plots (Drama, novel, etc.); Narration (Rhetoric); American fiction--21st century--History and criticism

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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