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Abstrak :
ABSTRACT
Willa Cather wrote 12 novels, more than 60 short stories, several poems, and a good number of critical essays. Her writings showed characters from all walks of life, and her settings were in quite different backgrounds and of quite different periods. Her works have never been noisy or self-assertive and yet Willa Cather, as Mildred Bennet said, has not needed a revival in the sense that there has been a Fitzgerald revival, a Sherwood Anderson revival, and a Nathanael West revival. (See Bennet, 1961: vii)
In The World of Willa Cather, Mildred Bennet writes that when Charles Poore reviewed her book in 1951, he wrote that there was no need for a Willa Cather revival "the world has never lost its taste for her excellent writing." She believes that the same assertion can be made quite as confidently today: from the response of a new generation of readers it is evident that the taste has been inherited; the flow of critical writing which began shortly after Miss Cather's death shows no sign of slacking off; and in colleges and universities interest in her life and work is decidedly on the increase . . ." (Bennet, 1961: vii).
Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, on her first encounter with the works of Willa Cather said that she had "discovered a genuine, first-class work of American fiction, in which a young woman of prairie background had conceived her world with new eyes and had made of it a work of art . . . ." (Sergeant, 1953: 11)
Willa Cather's other biographers have written with much admiration for her works and most of her critics have been generous with their reviews. Even critics who have not seen eye to eye with her have treated her with respect. These critics who have written for and against her have such formidable names like H. L. Mencken, Carl Van Doren, Edmund Wilson, Sinclair Lewis, T. K. Whipple, Joseph Wood Krutch, Rebecca West, E. K. Brown, David Daiches, Elizabeth Moorhead, Louise Bogan, Granville Hicks, Lionel Trilling, Alfred Kazin, Maxwell Geismar, George Schloss, Henry Steele Commager, Morton D. Zabel, Howard Mumford H. Jones, Leon Edel, James Schroeter, and many others. (See Schroeter, 1968).
What is it that pulls so many to Willa Cather? Why has "the world never lost its taste for her excellent writing"? What did Willa Cather "conceive" about her world so much so that she "made of it a work of art"? Upon reading and examining Willa Cather's works, I strongly suggest that the element which attracts most readers to her writing is the "American Dream."
This is the topic I aim to write about in this thesis--Willa Cather and the American Dream. I will show that the works of Willa Cather reflect the American dream, especially the dreams of freedom, success, and the pastoral vision.

Abstrak :
Tesis ini membicarakan gambaran perjuangan seorang wanita imigran Swedia yang bernama Alexandra di wilayah frontir Divide, Nebraska, Amerika Serikat. Sebagai seorang imigran wanita yang hidup di wilayah yang dikenal sebagai ?the wild land? (wilayah yang liar) dan masih menganut budaya patriarki (budaya masyarakat yang masih meletakkan laki-laki pada posisi dan kekuasaan yang dominan dibandingkan wanita), dia harus berjuang keras untuk mencapai impiannya. Dengan kemampuannya dalam beradaptasi dengan lingkungan barunya, Alexandra berhasil menyerap nilai-nilai Amerika, seperti kerja keras, optimis, mandiri dan kapitalistik. Dengan nilai-nilai tersebut dan didukung semangat feminisme yang tinggi, akhirnya Alexandra mampu menunjukkan dirinya sebagai wanita frontir yang berhasil menggapai American Dream (impian Amerika) nya.

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The Thesis describes the struggle of a Swedish immigrant woman, Alexandra, in frontier Divide region, Nebraska, United States of America. As a woman immigrant who is living in the region which is called as the wild land and is still believing in patriarchy system (a social system in which the male act as the primary authority figure central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property), lead to hard working to reach her dream. Her ability to adapt with new environment, Alexandra succeeds to absorb American values such as hard working, optimism, self reliance and capitalism. The values, supported by her feminism motivation, at the end, Alexandra shows the capability as frontier woman who can reach her American Dream.

Abstrak :
ABSTRACT
The Appearance of Looking Backward in the United State at turn of the nineteent century was due in part to several sugnificant events occuring during that phase of the nation's industrial development: Firstly, the unfavorable socio-economic condition of the capitalistic society: secondly, the vanishing of the frontier; and thirdly a developing interest in socialistic concept of life.

The ideal society described in the book is one with conditions identical to those of the messianic age of the biblical account. it is a society of human perfection, in which men live prosperouly and peacefully together, marked by the end of agitation and struhhle between man and man and between man and nature. the introduction of this ideal society constitutes a sort of socio-psychological escape replacing the no-longer-available escapism of the frontier.

In introducing this utopian concepts of life. Bellamy lacks consistency to a degree that makes his work intellectual weak. This incosistency is marked by bellamy's frequent shifts from his own premise underlying his utopian order to certain significant aspects of capitalistic principle which he is in fact attacking. This intellectual flaws in bellamy's ideas constitutes the origin of his failure as a social re-former