The Sculptor's Funeral

"The Sculptor's Funeral" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in McClure's in January 1905.^[1]

Plot summary

In the fictional small town of Sand City, Kansas, the body of Harvey Merrick, a famed sculptor, is brought back to his parents' house. Only Jim Laird, Harvey's old friend, and Henry Steavens, his student, have any real emotion. While the mother cries out in overdone and insincere grief, Steavens and Laird remark on the sculptor's harsh upbringing, and wonder how he ever made it out of the town. Later, the mother, showing her cruelty, yells at her maid for forgetting to do the salad dressing. Before the funeral, when the town's leading citizens make fun of Merrick for his education and eastern lifestyle, Laird then lashes out at them, attacking their hypocrisy in criticizing Harvey for faults of which they themselves are guilty, then exposing the corruption of their ideals, along with their practice of usury, gambling, shootings and so forth. Only Harvey escaped the corruption, and Laird alleges that this was why the town's leaders hated him. The next day, Laird, who is disgusted with himself for never having done what Harvey did (find a life elsewhere), is too drunk to attend the funeral. The story ends with the notation that Laird dies of a cold shortly thereafter.

Characters

A group of townspeople
Mr Harvey Merrick, a late sculptor with a 'lady-like voice'. He went to college in Boston.
Annie, Harvey's mother.
Martin,Harvey's father.
Roxy, the mulatto maid in the Merricks' household.
Jim Laird, the red-bearded lawyer.
Philip Phelps, the banker.
Elder, another banker.
Thompson, the undertaker.
Henry Steavens, a student of Harvey's.

Literary significance and criticism

It has been argued that the short story was foreshadowed by Willa Cather's poem "The Night Express." Harvey's prototype was the Pittsburgh-born artist Charles Stanley Reinhart. Cather wrote a feature story about the first anniversary of the death of Reinhart in 1897, when a monument was raised in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh.^[2]

References

↑ Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, page 588
↑ Bernice Slote, 'Willa Cather and Her First Book', Willa Cather, April Twilights, University of Nebraska Press, 1968, page xlii

External links

Full text
The Sculptor's Funeral public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Works by Willa Cather

Novels	Alexander's Bridge O Pioneers! The Song of the Lark My Ántonia One of Ours A Lost Lady The Professor's House My Mortal Enemy Death Comes for the Archbishop Shadows on the Rock Lucy Gayheart Sapphira and the Slave Girl

Short stories	"Peter" "Lou, the Prophet" "The Elopement of Allen Poole" "A Tale of the White Pyramid" "A Son of the Celestial" "The Clemency of the Court" "The Fear That Walks by Noonday" "On the Divide" "A Night at Greenway Court" "Tommy, the Unsentimental" "The Princess Baladina – Her Adventure" "The Count of Crow's Nest" "The Burglar's Christmas" "The Strategy of the Were-Wolf Dog" "A Resurrection" "The Prodigies" "Nanette: An Aside" "The Way of the World" "The Westbound Train" "Eric Hermannson's Soul" "The Dance at Chevalier's" "The Sentimentality of William Tavener" "The Affair at Grover Station" "A Singer's Romance" "The Conversion of Sum Loo" "Jack-a-Boy" "El Dorado: A Kansas Recessional" "The Professor's Commencement" "The Treasure of Far Island" "A Death in the Desert" "A Wagner Matinee" "The Sculptor's Funeral" "Flavia and Her Artists" "The Garden Lodge" "The Marriage of Phaedra" "Paul's Case" "The Namesake" "The Profile" "The Willing Muse" "Eleanor's House" "On the Gulls' Road" "The Enchanted Bluff" "The Joy of Nelly Deane" "Behind the Singer Tower" "The Bohemian Girl" "Consequences" "The Bookkeeper's Wife" "The Diamond Mine" "A Gold Slipper" "Ardessa" "Scandal" "Her Boss" "Coming, Eden Bower!" "Uncle Valentine" "Double Birthday" "Neighbour Rosicky" "Two Friends" "The Old Beauty" "Before Breakfast" "The Best Years"

Short story collections	The Troll Garden Youth and the Bright Medusa Obscure Destinies The Old Beauty and Others Five Stories

Collection of poems	April Twilights

Non-fiction	On Writing Not Under Forty

Collaborations	The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science

Adaptations	A Lost Lady (1934 film) O Pioneers! (1992 film) My Antonia (1995 film) The Song of the Lark (2001 film) O Pioneers! (2009 opera)

Willa Cather Birthplace Willa Cather House Willa Cather Foundation WILLA Literary Award

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