So Big

“Cabbages is beautiful!”

Selina’s praise of the beauty of the natural world is hilarious to Klaas Pool. To him, cabbages are part of the drab fabric of existence. They are grown, they are sold, and the profits are used to raise the family. That Selina should be able to find a beauty in something as ordinary as cabbages, coupled with Klaas’s reaction, illustrates the difference between herself and the rest of High Prairie.

“Then both turned to look at this audacious female who thus interrupted men’s conversation.”

Klaas and Jakob do not explicitly condemn Selina for interrupting their conversation, but their moment of stunned silence demonstrates the extent to which women are marginalized in this community. The idea that a woman would have a question about farming shocks the men, so much so that they do not know how to respond. This incident foreshadows Selina’s determination to involve herself (very successfully) in what is considered  men’s work. Even at this stage, she is defying gender expectations.

“Maartje and Klaas Pool were not cruel people, nor unkind. They were a little bewildered by this odd creature that they, inexplicably enough, had produced.”

Selina feels that she and Roelf are kindred spirits, but she has sympathy for his parents. Klaas and Maartje cannot comprehend Roelf’s artistic mind, as it operates beyond the framework of their understanding. His interests are alien to the community, meaning that Roelf himself seems alien. Yet they still love him, even if they do not understand him. Selina (and the narrator) stress that this does not make them bad people, just different.

“High Prairie swains failed to find Selina alluring. She was too small, too pale and fragile for their robust taste.”

Selina’s physical appearance is presented as a reflection of the cultural differences between her and the other women of High Prairie, denoting her outsider status and her novelty. The men of High Prairie, the novel suggests, need a robust woman to endure the tough life on the farm. Ironically, Selina proves herself more effective at running a farm than any of the town’s men. Her appearance is deceiving and illustrative of how the people of High Prairie (especially the men) are set in their ways.

“But there was about him the lovableness and splendor of the stricken giant.”

In many ways, Pervus is a typical High Prairie farmer. He is robust, insular, and uncommunicative. At the same time, however, the tragedies in his life elicit a remarkable sympathy from Selina, which urges her to fall in love with him. He has hidden depths, she feels, and his grief differentiates him from the other men. He is a giant of a man, brought low by luck. Selina sympathizes (and loves) Pervus like a character from one of her beloved novels.

“But he had this advantage: he had married a woman, had lived with her for two years. She had borne him a child. Selina was a girl in experience. She was a woman capable of a great deal of passion, but she did not know that.”

For all Selina’s ambition and intellect, Pervus has her at a disadvantage. He has known passion, while she has not. Selina does not know how to comprehend her desire for him, which overwhelms her and alters the course of her life. Pervus may be uncommunicative, but he has shown himself capable of passion in the past, only to have it snatched away from him in tragic circumstances. In this particular area, Pervus knows more than the inexperienced Selina.

“She, a truck farmer’s wife, living in High Prairie the rest of her days! Why, no! No! Was this the great adventure that her father had always spoken of?”

Selina had not expected to get married so soon. In marrying Pervus, she has wed herself to High Prairie as much as she has wed herself to any one man. Furthermore, she has wed herself to a future entirely different than the one she had planned. In reflecting on this, she tries to convince herself that this is all part of the “great adventure” talked about by her father. The life of a farmer’s wife does not seem particularly adventurous to Selina, so she must make it so.

“Now I am married. I am Mrs. Pervus DeJong.”

Selina repeats her new name and new status to affirm her new identity. In marrying Pervus, she has changed. Not only does she have a new name, but she has a new future and cannot quite comprehend the far-reaching implications of what has happened. Selina repeats her name as a mantra, speaking into existence her new identity as a married woman and repeating it so as to fix it in her mind and put her old ambitions in the past.

“And she saw clearly how the little farm was mismanaged through lack of foresight, imagination, and—she faced it squarely—through stupidity.”

A difficulty in the early stages of Selina’s marriage is coming to terms with Pervus’s inability to imagine a different, better world. He is so set in his ways that he refuses to change anything about his failing farm. Selina cannot deny this obstinance and foolishness; her first step toward trying to bring about change in the farm is to acknowledge her husband’s “stupidity” and to attempt to work around it.

“He rarely showed temper. Selina often wished he would.”

Pervus’s quiet ignorance infuriates Selina. She wishes that he would become angry with her suggestions, because that would show that he was at least seriously responding to her. Instead, his silent disregard is patronizing. He does not care about her innovative suggestions enough to even summon up an emotion. This patronizing silence is even more infuriating for Selina because it mirrors the way in which the society itself does not take her seriously.

“You’d be surprised, Jan, to know of all the things you’re going to hear of some day that you’ve never heard of before.”

Selina uses sarcasm to respond to patronizing male comments. The coming innovations in farming—innovations she has researched and wants to implement—are inevitable. Jan struggles to understand the construction of Selina’s sentence, let alone the technology that will change farming in High Prairie. Through her words, Selina is asserting her preparedness in the face of misogyny.

“I mustn’t call him Sobig any more. He doesn’t like it. Dirk. That’s a fine name.”

Selina stops herself from referring to her son by his nickname. Now that his father is dead, she has more responsibility to raise him than ever before. Key to this, however, is her belief that she should let him choose his own future. She will not impose her plans upon him any more than she will impose his nickname upon him. If Dirk wants to be known as Dirk, then she will accede to his desires. The nickname becomes an analogy for her approach to parenting.

“Come, climb down, Dirk. Here’s a lady mother used to know—oh, years and years ago, when she was a girl. Thousands of years ago.”

So much has changed since Selina last saw her old friend Julie that she must speak about their friendship in the past tense. The hyperbole “thousands of years ago” conveys the emotional distance between Selina’s youth and her present life. Back then, she still nurtured ambitions to see the world. The Selina who knew Julie was a different person, and Selina’s use of figurative language reflects how far removed she has become from who she once was.

“The whole story of the last twelve years of Selina’s life was written in her two hands.”

The life Selina has lived since she last parted from Julie is represented by her hands. The metaphor of a story “written in her two hands” reflects the roughness of her life and the difficulties she has endured, far removed from the girls’ school setting in which they once knew each other. This physical change is a symbol of Selina’s growth and suffering, of the hardship she has endured and the toll it has taken on her.

“She drove herself pitilessly. She literally tore a living out of the earth with her two bare hands.”

Following Pervus’s death, Selina reflects on her position and her future. She dedicates her life to allowing her son to achieve his potential. To do this, she drives herself as hard as possible. She works tirelessly for Dirk, showing a strength and determination that—to the people of High Prairie—are far removed from the naive young schoolteacher who first arrived in the community. This act of self-reflection, followed by determined, fevered action, demonstrates the extent to which Selina wants to wrest control of her destiny.

“I’m doing the work I’m interested in, for the person I love best in the world.”

Dirk fundamentally misunderstands his mother. He assumes that, because she works on a farm, she cannot satisfy her intellectual ambitions. But Selina treats the farm like an art project, using innovative and modern ideas to repudiate the fixed, patriarchal systems of the old farming community. The farm becomes her art project, a biography of her life and a declaration of her interests. Dirk, who lacks her artistic sensibilities or introspection, cannot look beyond the idea of farm work as mere toil.

“They never knew how many guests Selina entertained there before her fire those winter evenings—old friends and new.”

Dirk believes his mother to be lonely, but her isolation allows her to reflect on her life in a way that he never does. When sitting alone before the fire, she revisits her memories and reflects on everything that has happened to her. This gives Selina a better understanding of herself and allows her to work toward goals that make her happy. Dirk, who refuses to reflect on what he actually wants, cannot comprehend the value of his mother’s isolation. He pities her because he cannot pity himself.

 “The things that excited her about Chicago did not seem to interest Dirk at all.”

Selina is interested in people and communities, while Dirk is only really interested in himself. This fundamental difference is a foreshadowing of Dirk’s eventual failure to live up to his mother’s expectations, a sign that he is too self-absorbed to ever engage with the world around him. While Selina explores the city, delighting in the abundance of humanity, Dirk can only see Chicago as a backdrop to his own story.

“But he had expected these men to be different.”

Dirk covets wealth and status. When he is finally admitted to the upper echelons of Chicago society, he is disappointed to find that the people are exactly like everyone else. Rather than reconsidering his values and goals, however, Dirk simply tolerates these people. His worldview should be fundamentally changed, yet he is too passive to recognize the way in which his preconceptions are being challenged.

“He might have lived a thousand miles away for all he knew of the rest of Chicago—the mighty, roaring, sweltering, pushing, screaming, magnificent hideous steel giant that was Chicago.”

Dirk’s understanding of the city where he lives is contrasted with that of his mother. While Selina spends her time in Chicago by visiting every neighborhood, Dirk barely knows anything about the city. There is so much happening, but Dirk is only focused on accumulating wealth. He prioritizes personal wealth over a fascination with humanity, a flaw that distinguishes him from people like Selina and Dallas.

“Paula was right. Much of old Aug Hempel’s shrewdness and business foresight had descended to her.”

Paula’s business acumen speaks to the fundamental unfairness of the patriarchal society. Her brother Eugene has been groomed from a young age to take over the family business, but he shows no flair or insight for such a career. In contrast, Paula is as innovative in the banking world as Selina is on the farm. Because she is a woman, however, she will never be given the opportunities that are given to her brother. Through Dirk, Paula acts upon her ideas and achieves great success, but she is never given the recognition she deserves.

“They’re professional amateurs, trying to express something they don’t feel; or that they don’t feel strongly enough to make it worth while expressing.”

Dallas’s criticism of the wealthy Chicago elite is a subtle criticism of Dirk’s character, yet he lacks the introspection needed to recognize this as a description of himself. Few people are more professional than Dirk, who has dedicated his life to the uninteresting accumulation of wealth and status. In doing so, however, he has shorn himself of anything he feels strongly about. He has sacrificed passion for wealth, leaving himself unable to attract the interest of someone like Dallas.

“Dallas and Pool were very much absorbed in Paris plans, Paris reminiscences.”

Watching Dallas and Roelf, Dirk is shown his own limitations. Roelf left America to pursue his passions at great personal cost. He has toiled for his art, in a way that Dirk never could. As Dallas and Roelf relate to one another in such an easy, sincere manner, Dirk is shown the kind of bond that he could never share with a person like Dallas. Their passion reflects his own lack of passion.