A Comparison of the Writing Styles of Mary Austin and Willia Cather Essay

Steve rayburn E truly author has his or her own style of writing in the works he or she produces. Two female British authors, Mary Austin and Willia Cather, both have similar but distinct styles of writing. Mary Austin wrote a novel called Land of Little rain down that depicts death valley and the surrounding desert. The landscape of the story is no doubt a desert sand dunes, small shrubs, will grass, blistering heat, scavengers and very puny water.Although the desert can be easily described, Austin goes to great lengths to show the relationships between the subtle changes inthe landscape, behavioral patterns of animals, and even the way plant flavour grows around the landscape. For example, she describes and almost personi? es the way that the dunes are blown up on themselves that eventually form a shield that protect the grasses and shrubs that grow substructure the dunes.Austin takes a blunt picture of the landscape and shapes and sharpens it into a ? uid ecosystem. She show s the vibrance of life that exists in the so-called death valley. Willia Cather is the author of the novel called My Antonia that follows the path of a boy,Jim Burden, who moves westward and befriends a bohemian family that settles close to his.Jim is a thoughtful, self-aware individual that is very introverted wandering through the woods and pasture on his horse, his thoughts wandering standardized he is. Like Austin, Cather uses the landscape to springboard themes and motifs throughout the book, often the tantrum being an outward expression of the thoughts and feelings of the characters. For example, the rugged, untamed, potentially dangerous landscape foreshadows the imminent self-destruction of his friends father.The death is also very dangerous because he was the main breadwinner of the family, and without him the family could potentially be trapped in the winds and chill of the landscape themselves. Cather pulls from the scenery but uses it as a garnish rather than the main focus of Austins work. Although both writers use the landscape to build their stories, they use it very differently. Austins story is the landscape, while Cather uses the landscape as an element. The style of both authors have similarities but have distinct differences.