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Article Excerpt
"To those of my people who took part in the great settling, to them and to their generations I dedicate this narrative."
--Dedication of Giants in the Earth
Believing in the existence of a Norwegian American people, O. E. Rolvaag dedicated his writing to the past and future of Norwegian American society. (1) During his career, Rolvaag argued against Anglo-American nativism by advocating a culturally pluralistic American vision in which ethnic American enclaves would be allowed to co-exist and thrive. Questions of assimilation and belonging particularly compelled Rolvaag because he was a Norwegian immigrant himself; his immigrant trilogy consisting of Giants in the Earth (1927), Peder Victorious (1929), and Their Father's God (1931) deals with these questions deeply. This essay examines Rolvaag's rhetorical construction of ethnic identity in Giants in the Earth in light of his ethnic preservationist politics. Rolvaag speaks through his character Beret in order to advocate a return to the "indispensable" traits of Norwegian ethnicity, as he formulates them. These traits are strong religious faith, respect for one's parents, love of home, and an appreciation of a collective ethnic past. Rolvaag associates these characteristics with principles he sees declining in his time. He values Norwegian ethnicity highly because he associates it with a familiar, comforting view of the world. Thus, he privileges Norwegian ethnic identity over other formulations of individuality.
Giants in the Earth, the first and most famous novel of Rolvaag's trilogy, tells the story of Per Hansa, Beret, and their family as they settle in South Dakota. It was Per Hansa's decision to immigrate: in the spirit of pioneering ambition he dreams of a big white house with green cornices and a great red barn with white ones (52). But Beret's heart never leaves Norway. When we first see the family, they are lost on the desolate plains, their little caravan like a boat in the ocean of prairie grass. Eventually, they recover their course and settle on the prairie with the friends and neighbors with whom they emigrated. Beret continues to miss Norway terribly, even at the price of her sanity. A regretful Per Hansa is so moved over his wife's distress that he confesses to a traveling minister: "[Beret] has never felt at home here in America ... there are some people, I know now, who should never emigrate, because, you see, they can't take pleasure in that which is to come--they simply can't see it!" (440). Per Hansa's vision is set on the future, while Beret is "borne back ceaselessly into the past," to borrow F. Scott Fitzgerald's words in The Great Gatsby (1925). When Per Hansa suddenly dies at the end of the novel, it falls to Beret to realize all of the dreams her husband had set out. Circumstances force Beret to become the successful pioneer her husband would have been, but her suffering continues, even increases, and her heart remains in Norway. Yearning for a home she can never return to, Beret is abandoned in America by her own refusal to integrate the American landscape into her identity.
Giants in the Earth was written in Norwegian and published in Oslo in 1924-1925 in two volumes under the titles Ide dage (In Those Days) and Riket grundlaegges (Founding the Kingdom). Two years later it was translated by Lincoln Colcord in conjunction with the author and published by Harper and Brothers in the United States, where it enjoyed an enthusiastic reception. Although the novel was originally published in Norway, Rolvaag described his work as American literature that happened to be written in Norwegian (Zempel 13). He dedicated the novel to his "people who took part in the great settling," and it is evident that that the problems of Norwegian American immigrants were of special concern to Rolvaag in this work.
By the time Giants in the Earth was published in the 1920s, Norwegian American society was flourishing with a network of thriving cultural institutions such as newspapers, theaters, publishing houses, churches, language programs, and fraternal organizations. However, even at its height, Norwegian American society was on the cusp of extinction. Norwegian immigrants whose ties to the Old World were still fresh fed the growth of Norwegian American society. And Norwegian immigration was rapidly diminishing by the early-twentieth century. As a professor teaching at a Lutheran college founded to serve the needs of this immigrant community, Rolvaag was deeply involved and invested in the success and preservation of Norwegian American society. But, as the Norwegian immigrant community began to assimilate into the mainstream and English became increasingly prominent, Rolvaag found himself facing accusations regarding the "un-American" nature of teaching the language and literature of Old World ancestors (Haugen 10). Thus, Rolvaag used increasingly defensive ethnic preservationist rhetoric: Giants in the Earth is a part of this rhetoric.
Literature participates in the way we define our identities. For instance, the "American dream" has been perpetuated in literary convention, contributing to the propaganda promoting America as a new Eden in which man is freed from the bonds of history and ancestral guilt. Through repeated artistic renditions of this theme, Americans have to some degree assimilated this idea into their conception of themselves. As Werner Sollors writes, "[Ethnic] writings have complemented popular culture in providing newcomers, outsiders, and insiders with the often complicated mental constructions of American codes" (7). In writing Giants in the Earth, Rolvaag is alternately reflecting and redefining the way Norwegian Americans see themselves. He asserts that there are prototypically Norwegian traits: they are a melancholy people (Heritage 52), loyal to family and home (59), have great religious faith (124), and have a belief in the clairvoyant or sick mind (118). Further, he hopes to inculcate in young second generation immigrants a respect for one's parents and the history they can pass on (72). Rolvaag believes that Norwegians in America have a duty to use their most positive ethnic traits for the benefit of their new nation (113). Thus, he wants Norwegians to have a part in creating a new American ethnicity, while preserving a positive perception of Norwegian ethnicity.
When Rolvaag was writing, "ethnic" and "ethnicity" did not exist as the widely used terms we know today (Sollors 23). Instead, he uses words such as "race," "nationality," "culture," and "heritage" (Zempel 20). Considering the way Rolvaag uses these terms in his writing, it is safe to assume that he was referring to a Norwegian or Norwegian American ethnic group. Therefore, this essay articulates Rolvaag's arguments regarding "heritage" using the terminology of ethnicity. Ethnic identity is constructed by contrasting one's self against foreign others, usually the dominant culture that is conventionally defined as non-ethnic. However, for my purposes, ethnicity is a universal category by which everyone potentially can be classified. Hence, Rolvaag's minority ethnic identity is just as ethnic as the Anglo-American mainstream he contrasts himself against.
A Theory for Identity Dissonance
Patrick Colm Hogan's cognitive theory of identity from Empire and Poetic Voice will be used to parse Rolvaag's construction of Beret's identity dissonance. More than any other character, Rolvaag intends for us to trust Beret as a voice calling for a return to traditional Norwegian ways of life. Because Rolvaag is calling for a return to the Old World ethnic identity, Beret's identity dissonance will be characterized as reactionary traditionalist according to Hogan's theory. Rolvaag privileges Norwegian ethnic identity over other formulations of identity by idealizing Norway as a safe, familiar place contrasted against the incomprehensibility of the wild frontier. Norway is civilized and knowable, while the plains are "so wide that the rim of the heavens cut down on it around the entire horizon" (Rolvaag, Giants 3). Rolvaag establishes Beret's membership in the Norwegian ethnic group through her biological descent; she is Norwegian because her parents are Norwegian. When Beret thinks that she is dying, she wants to be buried in her family chest because it is closest, symbolically, to returning to Norway, and she wants Per Hansa to apologize to her parents for emigrating because she sees it as a sin against her forefathers. Beret's identity dissonance derives from her refusal to see the plains as home. Rolvaag implicitly recognizes the importance of home in reorienting identity by demonstrating that Beret and another character can achieve peace on the plains through acknowledging their settled existence in America as part of their ethnic identity. Rolvaag confirms the premise of Hogan's theory of identity: that one's idea of one's self must be realized by daily practice. You can't just "talk the talk," you've got to "walk the walk."
Hogan's theory divides identity into two constituent parts: categorial and practical identity. Categorial identity is our reflective idea of self, and practical identity is our practice. Beret reflects upon herself as Norwegian, and therefore her categorial identity is Norwegian. Practical identity is voluntary, but it is evidenced by tangible actions. Hogan writes that one's practical identity "must fit with those in one's community," (8) because it includes not only our own customary practices but also our expectations of others....
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