The Quest for Whiteness in Willa Cather’s "My Ántonia" (1918) and Henry Roth’s "Call It Sleep" (1934)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to trace the assimilation process of European immigrants to the United States at the turn of the century in Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918) and Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep (1934). Bearing in mind the historical relevance of race and whiteness in the United States, I analyse the changes performed by Cather’s and Roth’s protagonists in order to achieve the status of white. To this purpose, I provide a brief overview of the nature of whiteness in the United States and its epistemological changes to account for its importance within the novels. I then look at the transformations characters perform in terms of religious faith and gender norms, as well as their interaction with English and spaces to become integrated in the new land. In doing so, differences between the novels arise, but so does a subtext of violence common to the immigrant experience.