The Sculptor's Funeral

"The Sculptor's Funeral"
Short story by Willa Cather
Text available at Wikisource
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Short story
Publication
Published in	McClure's
Publication type	Magazine
Publication date	January 1905

"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 talk, and we learn Laird never made it out of the town. Later, the mother, showing her cruelty, yells at her maid for forgetting to do the salad dressing. As the men sit up with the body, they moralize and criticize the deceased. This angers Laird, who comes into the room and points out how each of them are guilty, then exposing the corruption of their towns' leaders and how much they had hated Harvey. The next day, Laird, who is disgusted with himself for never having found a life elsewhere as Harvey had done, 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

v t e 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 Hard Punishments
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
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)
Related	Willa Cather Birthplace Willa Cather House Edith Lewis Willa Cather Foundation WILLA Literary Award

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