Loneliness In Rölvaag's Giants In The Earth

In the novel, Giants in the Earth, Rölvaag goes to great lengths to portray the total experience of what life was like for those daring enough to settle it and start over again in the unknown and unexplored regions of the great American prairies. He writes so that the reader can feel just how vast and open the land is as well as the (hardship) harshness of frontier life and the destructive effects it had on the settlers—both the strong and the weak. It is no surprise that isolation, loneliness, and fear, a byproduct associated with loneliness, become constant companions of the settlers. The isolation and loneliness the characters feel (experience) is a reaction to the environment. The western plains are a desolate place harboring desolate souls. Throughout the novel the isolation and loneliness manifests in the characters differently; yet no one, man or woman, is immune from its effects rather it is how these …show more content…
From the very beginning she notices the “deep silence” (Rölvaag 43) of the prairie “this strange thing: the stillness had grown deeper, the silence more depressing, the farther west they journeyed” (Rölvaag 43) and the “endless blue-green solitude that had neither heart nor soul” (Rölvaag 50). Here on the prairies, Beret is immediately struck by the feeling that she is totally isolated from civilization and finds the silence and the wide open spaces both depressing and terrifying at how vast the land is. For Beret, living on the prairie makes her feel exposed, “here there was nothing to even hide behind” (Rölvaag 42) and so she hangs heavy clothes to cover the windows to shut out the night and block out the prairie. The loneliness and isolation weighs on her mind and even though the isolation hurts her, she cannot adjust to this new environment that is so different from Norway and she becomes more of a