Little House on the Prairie

“Wild animals would not stay in a country where there were so many people. Pa did not like to stay, either. He liked a country where the wild animals lived without being afraid. He liked to see the little fawns and their mothers looking at him from the shadowy woods, and the fat, lazy bears eating berries in the wild-berry patches.”

These examples of the wildlife Pa misses as their surroundings in Wisconsin become more heavily populated both provide sensory richness and make it clear that Pa is integrated into the outdoor world, familiar with its animals, habitats, and landscapes. This association continues throughout the book, as Pa hunts, traps, scouts, logs, and rides through the landscape. Note that Pa is somewhat selective about which kinds of wildlife he will tolerate, reserving the right to remove animals he deems dangerous (see quote #15).

“Mary did not move; she was trembling and still. But Laura could not help wriggling a little bit. She did so want to see what was happening…The wagon lurched; there was a sudden heavy splash beside it. Laura sat straight up and clawed the blanket from her head.”

This description of the two sisters’ behavior during the perilous creek crossing is representative of their behavior throughout the book. Mary tends to be stoic, physically still, and reserved, while Laura has difficulty repressing her curiosity, physical energy, and emotions. Hence in this scene, Mary remains under the blankets, as Ma tells them, while Laura can’t stop herself from rising and observing the danger unfolding.

“She knew it was shameful to cry, but there was crying inside her.”

The sentiment that “it was shameful to cry” demonstrates that during the nineteenth century, children were to suppress and repress their emotions, both positive and negative. Girls and women, especially, were expected to be demure, gentle, and calm at all times. Emotional displays were frowned upon in both adults and children (again, these expectations were often gendered, as Pa’s cheerful, demonstrative nature illustrates), a difficult expectation for Laura given her strong feelings. There was also a cultural stigma against feeling sorry for oneself, also apparent in this situation. Laura, however, remains aware of the “crying inside her,” or her emotion that remains present but unexpressed.

“All the long way from Wisconsin poor Jack had followed them so patiently and faithfully, and now they had left him to drown. He was so tired, and they might have taken him in the wagon. He had stood on the bank and seen the wagon going away from him, as if they didn’t care for him at all. And he would never know how much they wanted him.” 

In spite of the cultural expectation of emotional repression in children (see above), Laura often expresses attachment to and delight in animals. She worries about Jack and empathizes with him in a sophisticated way, recognizing the existence of animal-human bonds, and attributes human-like emotions to him, afraid that “he would never know how much [the family] wanted him.” 

“There was no door, and there were no windows. There was no floor except the ground and no roof except the canvas. But that house had good stout walls, and it would stay where it was. It was not like the wagon, that every morning went on to some other place.”

This passage emphasizes the house’s sturdiness (“good stout walls” and stability (“it would stay where it was”). Though Laura, at the end of the book, associates traveling in the wagon with excitement and novelty (see quote #25), here she compares the house favorably with the wagon, underscoring the sense of disorientation a child might feel in times of instability. The quote also acknowledges that persistent upheaval in the form of long-term travel and re-settling in multiple places could be psychologically detrimental in some circumstances. 

“‘We’re going to do well here, Caroline,’ Pa said. ‘This is a great country. This is a country I’ll be contented to stay in the rest of my life.’

‘Even when it’s settled up?’ Ma asked.

‘Even when it’s settled up. No matter how thick and close the neighbors get, this country’ll never feel crowded. Look at that sky!’

Laura knew what he meant. She liked this place, too. She liked the enormous sky and the winds, and the land that you couldn’t see to the end of. Everything was so fresh and clean and big and splendid.”

This conversation reveals some of the Ingalls’s expectations about their new home and the dynamics between them. First, both Ma and Pa view it as only a matter of time before the country is “settled up” (heavily developed by white settlers like themselves). Second, Pa’s characteristic optimism is expressed by his statements “I’ll be contented [here] the rest of my life…it’ll never feel crowded…Look at that sky!”. Also notable here is Laura’s identification with her father, rather than her mother, as she says “[she] knew what he meant,” a tendency that continues throughout the book.

“That night they would sleep in the house; they would never sleep beside a camp fire again.”

This quote marks a transition for the family as they fully enter into the “settled” life rather than the nomadic existence they experience in the wagon. The process of sleeping indoors rather than outside in a temporary shelter mirrors the deeper process by which they become oriented to, and settled in, their new life. The statement “they would never sleep beside a camp fire again” is also ironic, since by the end of the book, the Ingalls family is again travelling by wagon.

“Pa and Ma talked about the folks in Wisconsin, and Ma wished she could send them a letter. But Independence was forty miles away, and no letter could go until Pa made the long trip to the post-office there. Back in the Big Woods so far away, Grandpa and Grandma and the aunts and uncles and cousins did not know where Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary and Baby Carrie were. And sitting there by the camp fire, no one knew what might have happened in the Big Woods. There was no way to find out.”

This quote emphasizes the family’s isolation and that they are separated from their social ties in Wisconsin. Ma seems to feel this more strongly than Pa, since she expresses this longing for communication with the family. The social opportunities for women settlers on the prairie, particularly to see other white women who had previously formed the backbone of their social groups, were much more limited and infrequent than they were for men. Men tended to be more likely to settle in such remote places and to be more mobile than women, who generally restricted their activities to the domestic sphere. In keeping with the reserve expected of women, Ma rarely voices a need for social interaction.

“He said that these bachelors did not know that anyone else was in the country. They had seen nobody but Indians.” 

This offhand remark of Pa’s reveals an important bias of white settlers toward other whites—the bachelor neighbors don’t consider the Native Americans to be “people” in the same way that whites are, since they don’t consider the natives to be “anyone else” the way that whites are.  

“Ma said the damp air might give her a fever.”

This statement is a foreshadowing of the malaria that will eventually afflict the entire family. Ma’s knowledge that the “damp air” (actually the mosquitos that live in wet areas) may cause sickness does not prevent the whole family from falling ill, again emphasizing that they remain vulnerable in their new home.

“They were all happy that night. The fire on the hearth was pleasant, for on the High Prairie even the summer nights were cool. The red-checked cloth was on the table, the little china woman glimmered on the mantel-shelf, and the new floor was golden in the flickering firelight. Outside, the night was large and full of stars. Pa sat for a long time in the doorway and played his fiddle and sang to Ma and Mary and Laura in the house and to the starry night outside.” 

Pa’s position on the threshold between indoors and out is appropriate in this scene because he usually serves as the liminal figure who can move seamlessly between the two realms, as opposed to Ma, who is generally depicted within the indoor or domestic realm—even when the family camps, she performs the chores that would normally be done inside a house like cooking, tidying, etc.. Pa also serves as a protective barrier between his family and the dangers of the outside world the “door” that Laura believes no harm can pass through. The sensory details of this scene are also reminiscent of a vivid childhood memory in which small details are retained. 

“Laura ran back and forth, waving her sunbonnet and yelling, ‘Hi! Yi-yi-yi!’ till Ma told her to stop. It was not ladylike to yell like that. Laura wished she could be a cowboy.” 

Laura’s desire to be a cowboy reflects her larger desires for freedom, physical activity, and purpose. She envies the lack of restraint that male figures enjoy compared to females, and later in the book, she wants to be a Native American because she also associates the natives with a lack of constraint (see quote #20). Like other aspects of Laura’s character, her desire is at odds with the prevailing gender norms of nineteenth-century America.

“Land knows, they’d never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam over it like wild animals. Treaties or no treaties, the land belongs to folks that’ll farm it. That’s only common sense and justice.”

The speaker in this passage is Mrs. Scott, the Ingalls’s neighbor who, with her husband, voices some of the strongest and most blatant sentiments of racial bias against Native Americans. Mrs. Scott is unable to see beyond European/Caucasian ways of life and culture to perceive that the Native Americans had lived and managed the lands on which they were living for thousands of years. Like many whites of European descent, she associates farming and the more sedentary lifestyle it engenders with “civilization” and “ownership.” She is either deeply unaware of, or has dismissed, the Native Americans’ deep cultural and ancestral ties to the land she and her husband have claimed.

“We can’t have panthers running around in a country where there are little girls.”

Despite that he left Wisconsin because it was becoming too “civilized” and crowded, driving out the wildlife, Pa is intolerant of wildlife that may pose a threat to his family, like the panther. In other words, as a white male, he “edits” nature according to his priorities, enjoying and profiting from some aspects of it, like hunting and trapping, but reserving the right to remove parts of it that he finds threatening.

“Laura was not exactly scared, but that sound made her feel funny. It was the sound of quite a lot of Indians, chopping with their voices. It was something like the sound of an ax chopping, and something like a dog barking, and it was something like a song, but not like any song Laura had ever heard. It was a wild, fierce sound, but it didn’t seem angry.”

The sounds Laura associates with the natives’ voices are all those of inhuman entities: the ax chopping, a dog barking, “something like” a song but not quite. These comparisons contribute to the sense that natives are somewhat less human and more objectified (particularly when Laura demands the Native American baby) than whites. Laura’s assessment that the sound is “wild…fierce” but not angry contributes to the overall sense of ambiguity toward natives in the book.

“Mary sat down, too, and folded her hands in her lap. But Laura climbed onto Pa’s knee and beat him with her fists. ‘Where is it? Where is it? Where’s my present?’ she said, beating him.”

This quote illustrates Mary and Laura’s personalities. Tantalized by a hidden gift from Pa, Laura reacts physically and with her characteristic energy, as implied by the term “beating him.” She demands the present in the same way that she later demands the native child from Pa, perhaps feeling equally entitled to it as to the headband Pa eventually produces in this passage. Meanwhile, Mary, with gestures reminiscent of Ma, sits calmly and waits for her father to bestow the gift.

“They always have let settlers keep the land. They’ll make the Indians move on again. Didn’t I get word straight from Washington that this country’s going to be opened up for settlement anytime now?”

This quote underscores the uncertain nature of the information that drove Pa to move the family to Kansas. It also reveals a reality of nineteenth-century life, the slow communication of information to geographically distant locations. Ma alludes to this fact when she mentions wanting to write letters, knowing that they will take weeks or months to reach their destination.

“‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian,’ Mr. Scott said.

Pa said he didn’t know about that. He figured that Indians would be as peaceable as anybody else if they were let alone. On the other hand, they had been moved west so many times that naturally they hated white folks. But an Indian ought to have sense enough to know when he was licked.”

Though Pa is trying to defend the natives in this passage, his underlying assumption of their defeat is manifested by the word “licked,” to imply that the whites have ultimately already “won” in the race conflicts of the time. Pa’s statement that “naturally” the natives are hostile to whites is a sentiment that makes his decision to take his young family to Kansas almost incomprehensible. Yet again, Wilder’s characters express both fear toward natives and a lack of fear.

“Laura looked and looked at the Indian children, and they looked at her. She had a naughty wish to be a little Indian girl. Of course she did not really mean it. She only wanted to be bare naked in the wind and the sunshine, and riding one of those gay little ponies.”

Like Laura’s defiance against gender norms, she describes her desire to be a native as “naughty.” She acknowledges the severe deviance of this sentiment when she says that “of course she did not really mean it,” implying that this sentiment would have been highly offensive if she had voiced it. She expresses her desire for freedom in wishing to be “bare naked,” a symbol for freedom from constraints.

“‘Its eyes are so black,’ Laura sobbed. She could not say what she meant.” 

Wilder uses the color black to imply exoticness in the natives’ appearances, noticing that both their hair and eyes are black. It is also notable that both the papoose’s eyes and the headband Laura receives as a gift from her father are black, further illustrating that Laura sees the baby as a possession rather than a person. “She could not say what she meant,” expresses Laura’s own vaguely understood senses of envy and regret toward the natives.

“…that long line of Indians slowly pulled itself over the western edge of the world.” 

This quote illustrates Mary and Laura’s personalities. Tantalized by a hidden gift from Pa, Laura reacts physically and with her characteristic energy, as implied by the term “beating him.” She demands the present in the same way that she later demands the native child from Pa, perhaps feeling equally entitled to it as to the headband Pa eventually produces in this passage. Meanwhile, Mary, with gestures reminiscent of Ma, sits calmly and waits for her father to bestow the gift.

“Pretty soon they would all begin to live like kings.”

This statement comes after the natives have left the prairie, implying that the family now has sole possession of the territory that is left behind. It is implied that a barrier to the family’s total dominance of the landscape has been removed, though it’s unclear whether the barrier is the natives’ departure or their ability to farm the land with their supplies. The use of the word “kings” further implies a right to ownership or of power over a kingdom. 

“I’ll not stay here to be taken away by the soldiers like an outlaw! If some blasted politicians in Washington hadn’t sent out word it would be all right to settle here, I’d never have been three miles over the line into Indian Territory. But I’ll not wait for the soldiers to take us out. We’re going now!” 

Pa despises the idea of being an “outlaw,” although the illegality of the family’s settlement is finally made clear by the government’s intent to remove the whites. He also places blame for the misunderstanding not on himself but on the “blasted politicians” who had “sent out word”, although it is never clear how Pa gets the information early in the story. His vehement desire to leave of his own accord underscores his sense of independence and self-determination.