Up this month for the Willa Cather Short Story Project is “The Dance At Chevalier’s.”
Read it on the Willa Cather Archive: https://cather.unl.edu/writings/shortfiction/ss038
“The Dance At Chevalier’s” was published in the April 28, 1900 edition of The Library. The story revolves around two men interested in the same woman. One is Mexican; the other is Irish. I did a quick skim of the story and, content warning, be prepared for racist stereotypes.
Cather published this story under the pseudonym Henry Nicklemann, a name she also used for the fifteen columns that she wrote for the Pittsburgh Gazette in 1901-02. Why do you think she used a male pen name for this story?
What’s next?
Read “The Dance At Chevalier’s” and come back to discuss it on the response post I’ll share on November 23, the fourth Wednesday of the month. Or, feel free to read it now and comment here if you can’t wait until then!
New to this blog? Learn more about the Willa Cather Short Story Project here. In a nutshell, we read one Cather short story a month. I remind everyone of what story we’re reading on the second Wednesday of the month and then share a response on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Jump in anytime!
[…] I wrote in the reminder post, there are racist stereotypes in this story that are primarily aimed at Signor, the Mexican […]