Connection to Literature
The project is trying to stress the importance of the four seasons on the Midwestern region. Each page tries to highlight the uniqueness of the each season and why it is so significant to the Midwest. It is apparent the seasons have a tremendous effect on the people in the Midwestern prairie. The seasons can dictate daily activities and morale of the people on the prairie. This effect carries and leaks into literature from the Midwest. Only through the experience of the four seasons in the Midwest region can one truly absorb the full effect of them. There is no way a person who is born, raised and has lived their whole life outside the Midwest can write about such incidents of the region. This is what help defines Midwestern literature. The experiences and scenery from this region are very rare.
Furthermore, the great effect that the seasons have on the people also set this region apart. There are two different extremes that Midwesterners encounter over the year. The freezing winter and the blistering summer are total opposites. People in the winter struggle to survive while summer is a time for growth and harvest. In the US, the four seasons of the year have the greatest effect on the Midwest region. For example, the weather and conditions in Florida or California are totally different. In each season the weather and conditions are fairly constant. They do not experience extremes of the four seasons. This is another distinct characteristic of the Midwest. When the season changes so does everything else in the Midwest. Along with the landscape that changes one's life can change dramatically. For example, as soon as the season changed from autumn to winter, a character in the novel Antonia's life transforms dramatically. The hardships of winter causes Antonia's father to commit suicide. This changes Antonia's role in her family. She soon starts to work outdoors doing jobs usually reserved for men. She is also forced to grow up even faster. Her life altered as soon as fall turned into winter.
Midwestern Literature can be defined as true American literature because Midwestern America is so distinct from other regions of the world that the writing from this area also becomes very distinct. An example would be Cather's choice of colors used to describe the landscape during the Fall. One could write of such creative and different colors only if they have seen them up close and personal. It would be extremely difficult to create colors such as red-gold and pale yellow if one has never seen them.