Lucy Gayheart

infobox Book |
name = Lucy Gayheart
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author = Willa Cather
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country = United States
language = English
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genre = Novel
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release_date = 1935
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media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
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isbn = NA
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"Lucy Gayheart" is Willa Cather's eleventh novel. It was published in 1935.

Plot introduction

The novel revolves round the eponymous character, Lucy Gayheart, a young girl from Haverford, by the Platte River.

Plot summary

Book I: "Lucy Gayheart"

On Christmas holiday away from her music studies in Chicago, Lucy Gayheart is ice skating in her hometown of Haverford. Harry joins her. Later she takes the train back to Chicago - he is with her until the Omaha stop. In a prolepsis, she recalls going to a performance by Clement Sebastian and later to an audition with him - she has one scheduled for her return. Back in Chicago then, she goes to a concert by the same artist. The next day she goes to his for a singing practice, and meets his valet Giuseppe. She will replace James Mockford whilst the latter is convalescent. Clement Sebastian seems distant. Once he gets a call asking for money, which must be from his wife. On another occasion, he goes to Madame Renee de Vignon's funeral; later he goes into that same Catholic church again. Later Mockford comes back and he greets Lucy; he says Mrs Sebastian likes all about her husband; the two men are off to Minesotta and Wisconsin. Lucy feels dejected. However, she gets a telegraph from Sebastian telling her to come to her studio the following day - this cheers her up. She ends up owing up to him that she might love him, and runs off. He manages to meet her again at Auerbach's and tells her nothing is the matter. Giuseppe admits to wishing he had had an education. Later, both Lucy and Sebastian are depressed; the latter takes her to dinner and tells her about Larry MacGowan. The next day he tells her he really appreciates her but she is too young and only growing up to love him. Mockford is sulky with him because of a tiff over a concert programme. Later, as Sebastian is off on an Eastern tour, Harry visits her and they go to operas and museums together. Although at first he seems appreciative, he criticises the French Impressionists at the museum, which gives her a headache. In a restaurant the next day, she rejects his proposal for marriage.

Sebastian finally comes back briefly; Lucy is to go to New York City to be his accompanist in the winter, after he tours Europe. Meanwhile she has to rehearse, and she will take up Sebastian's apartment as her studio. On his departure she cries. Later she receives a letter from her sister Pauline which says Harry has gotten married to Miss Arkwright. She falls out with Mr Auerbach. He then reads about Sebastian and Giuseppe's drowning in Lake Como, near Cadenabbia.

Book II

Mrs Ramsay is gossiping about Lucy with her daughter. Harry is very glib with Lucy whenever he meets her. She feels depressed, and her only solace is the orchard. When Pauline wants to fell it down to make more money growing onions and potatoes, she throws a tantrum and it is not felled. Later she visits Mrs Ramsay, who has been asking after her and plays the piano there. At night she has nightmares. She then goes into the bank in another attempt to talk to Harry, but again he sends her away glibly. On Thanksgiving Fairy Blair is back, and tells Lucy she knows what happened from a friend of hers; she then proceeds to tell Pauline. Mr Gayheart has bought tickets for the opera; the performance seems humdrum to Lucy. On Christmas Day however, owing to the shopping and flurry, she cheers up a little and decides to write to Mr Auerbach and inquire about a job in Chicago again. He replies to say she can come in March, when the current teacher leaves abroad. Lucy has an argument with her sister when she turns down a job as a teacher in Haverford. Later, she goes for a walk. Harry sledges by and pretends he is too busy to take her back to her house. That night she falls into the icy lake. Her body is found by her father and other locals the next day.

Book III

Twenty-five years later, in 1927, Mr Gayheart's corpse is brought back from Chicago, where he died in hospital. Pauline having died five years earlier, he was the remaining member of the family. Many people turn up at the funeral. Harry, who became chummy with Mr Gayheart after Pauline's death and with whom he would often play chess, was bequeathed their house. He ponders on the footprints made by Lucy on the road when it was newly built by his father as they moved into Haverford. He proceeds to give the house to his bank assistant Milton Chase, provided that the latter looks after the footprints.

Characters

*Lucy Gayheart, a local youth. She goes to Chicago to study music. Her mother died when she was six, and she was mostly brought up by her sister Pauline. She likes to sit by the Lutheran church. She dies in 1902, drown in icy lake water.
*Jacob Gayheart, Lucy's father. He is a watchmaker and gives lessons of clarinet, flute and violin to local children. He was born in Belleville, Illinois and his parents were Bavarian. His two sons have died. He likes to play chess. He dies in 1927.
*Mrs Gayheart, Jacob Gayheart's late wife. She was American, and bought the farm for her family.
*Pauline Gayheart, Lucy's elder sister by twelve years. She is 'level-headed'. She dies in 1922.
*Jim Hardwick, a local youth.
*Harry Gordon, a local youth. He is rich. He is eight years older than Lucy. He used to play basketball. He goes on to marry Harriet Arkwright after Lucy rejects his proposal to marriage. Later he turns glib towards her, and leaves her alone in the cold on the night she dies.
*Harry Gordon's father, a banker who moved to Haverford with his son when he was but a young child.
*Fairy Blair, a local girl. She doesn't like Lucy.
*Harriet Arkwright of St Joe, a rich girl from Omaha, whom Harry has been seeing. She is a Freemason. She ends up getting married to Harry. When he is away on the war front, she manages the bank.
*Professor Paul Auerbach, Lucy's music teacher in Chicago.
*Mrs Auernach, Professor Auerback's wife.
*Mrs Schneff, a baker in Chicago, whom Lucy met through Mrs Auerbach. She rents her a room in her house.
*Clement Sebastian, an opera singer in Chicago.
*James Mockford, Clement Sebastien's accompanist. He is English and lame. Clement Sebastian calls him 'Jimmy'. He is gingerhaired.
*Giuseppe, Clement Sebastian's valet. He used to work in Florence and Clement Sebastian met him in London.
*Morris Weisbourn, Clement Sebastian's concert agent.
*Mrs Sebastian, Clement's wife, who lives in Paris.
*Madame Renee de Vignon, a late friend of Clement Sebastian's.
*Robert Lester, Mrs sebastian's father. He was a prominent conductor.
*Cunningham
*Larry MacGowan, a late friend of Sebastian's, who dies Savoy, near Sallanches, where the two men had been hiking together in their youth. They fell out when he was rude on a visit to their house in Chantilly. The two men had lived together when they were in their twenties.
*Marius, the Sebastians's adopted child. He was sent to school in Paris after some tensions between the couple.
*Mrs Alex Ramsay, a widow from Haverford. She is in her seventies, though fairly spry.
*Molly, a child from Haverford.
*Doctor Bridgeman, a doctor from Haverford.
*Doctor Bridgeman's wife
*Jerry Sleeth, a carpenter from Haverford. He is a Seventh-Day Advent.
*Father MacCormac, a Catholic priest from Haverford.
*Mrs Jackmann
*Madge Norwall, Mrs Ramsay's daughter, who lives in Omaha.
*Theodore, Madge's son, in college in Omaha.
*Poole, a man Pauline has employed to fell down the orchard.
*Milton Chase, a young cashier at the Platte Valley Bank.
*Sidney Gilchrist, a friend of Fairy Blair's and student of Auerbach.
*Gullford, a carriage driver in Haverford.
*Nick Wakefield, a local youth in Haverford.
*Whitney, Harry's lawyer.

Alllusions to actual history

*Jacob Gayheart's parents were German immigrants who moved to Belleville, Illinois, probably after the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
*The First World War is mentioned through Harry, who left Haverford to help.

Allusions to other works

*In Book I, Chapter 3, Harry Gordon mentions the waltz "Hearts and Flowers".
*Lucy first hears Clement Sebastian sing a Franz Schubert song about Castor and Pollux. He then proceeds to sing a rendition of Lord Byron's "When We Two Parted". Other operas mentioned by him are "The Barber of Seville" by Gioachino Rossini, "Hérodiade" by Jules Massenet, "Elijah" by Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Debussy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
*Clement Sebastian also mentions writers Michel de Montaigne, and William Shakespeare with "Macbeth".
*Harry takes Lucy to see Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida", "Otello" and "La traviata", and Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin".
*At the Art Museum, Harry doesn't like French Impressionism.
*During Harry's Chicago visit, "'O Sole Mio" is also mentioned.
*Lucy and her father mention "H.M.S. Pinafore" by Gilbert and Sullivan, "Die Fledermaus", "La belle Hélène", and "The Bohemian Girl".

External links

* [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200481.txt Full Text]