O Pioneers! Black Boy and O Pioneers show how women are treated in different ways. Willa Cather depicts O Pioneers as a powerful woman, unlike any other women in literature. Alexandra shows a woman who exhibits qualities similar to the other gender such as aggression, persistence and determination. Alexandra could be read as a predictor of how women will behave in the 21st Century. The frontier has gender norms that are flexible and easily reinterpreted. Richard Wright, however, depicts women as the mirror of Black men’s social problems and challenges in his autobiography. For millennia, the majority of writers have portrayed women as a problem. Wright shows the hardships Black men have to live in by not including women and their concerns. Two stories exist about Alexandra Wright. Both the first seeks to protect her brother’s farm and the profits of the father’s business, while Wright exposes prejudices while mostly neglecting Black women.
Alexandra, in O Pioneers is a female protagonist who struggles to succeed in traditionally male areas. Cather shows that Alexandra, the main character in Cather’s novel, overcomes all obstacles and defies gender stereotypes in order to inherit her father’s estate. She also takes care of it. Cather portrays Alexandra as the protagonist. She is a Swedish citizen. Alexandra thrives in establishing her identity. She fights to equal landowner rights and regains her father’s abandoned wasteland. Cather describes herself as creative, perceptive, and hardworking. Cather (1913), observed that Alexandra “read the papers, watched the market, and learned from her neighbours’ mistakes” (p. 15). Cather (1913), added, “Alexandra read the newspapers, watched the markets, and learned from her neighbors’ blunders” (p. 15). Cather portrays Alexandra convincingly as an individual who has overcome gender oppression, in contrast to most pioneer-era writing.
Richard Wright wrote his autobiography in a sexist viewpoint, focusing on how Black males have impacted the lives of the women in it. Instead of writing about the racism experienced by African-Americans during that time, Wright and his wife focused on other topics. Wright’s memoirs portray Wright’s grandmother and mother as difficult and scary. Wright (1998) recalls in one passage that “my mother had been disciplining me throughout the morning, telling me to be quiet, and warning me not make noise.” (p.3) Wright aims to show through the introduction of Black Boy that the women in his life hinder and suppress his creativity.