His Pupil Tom Outland Analysis

The Professor thought that “people who are intensely in love when they marry, and who go on being in love, always meet with something which suddenly or gradually makes a difference,” and that, for him and his wife, “it had been…his pupil, Tom Outland” (Cather 38). By placing this thought directly following an argument between the Professor and his wife, Cather causes the reader to question whether the change the Professor ponders is causing conflict between him and his wife. She guides the reader to think about of the beginnings of their relationship, what brought them together, and whether the same fundamental elements keep their relationship intact in the present.
Cather chronicles how Godfrey fell in love with Lillian by describing the qualities that brought them together. “What she had was a richly endowed nature that responded strongly to life and art… Before his marriage, and for years afterward, Lillian’s prejudices, her divinations about people and art…, were the most interesting things in St. Peter’s life” (Cather 38). …show more content…
Cather goes out of her way to point out his commitment to spending time with his wife, always making sure that, every week, “one evening he and his wife went out to dinner, or to the theatre or a concert” (Cather 18). In Jonathan Ned Katz’s article “The Invention of Heterosexuality,” he points out that “the [early] twentieth-century heterosexual imperative…[associated] a procreant urge…with carnal lust as it had not been earlier.” Cather contrasts the societal expectation for romance to be tied to procreation and sexual desire with the Professor’s deliberate avoidance of the norm. While he did have children with his wife, Cather never connects procreation with the relationship between Professor St. Peter and his wife. Neither would “carnal lust” be an accurate way to describe their