Part I, Chapter 1

The novel introduces the reader to a period thirty to forty years before the present narration. The Forrester house, in a town called Sweet Water, is renowned among railway executives throughout its area as being one of the most hospitable places to stay. Mr. Forrester is a retired railway man who made enough money to live well, and his wife is a beautiful woman twenty-five years younger who charms all of the railroad executives that come to visit them. She is described as exceedingly aristocratic, and her husband tells us she is able to act "lady-like" even while being chased by a bull.

Analysis

A Lost Lady begins by defining two distinct classes of society, the Atlantic aristocrats and the homesteaders. "There were then two distinct social strata in the prairie States; the homesteaders and hand-workers who were there to make a living, and the bankers and gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic seaboard to invest money and to "develop our great West" as they used to tell us" (3). Notice the use of language here, we are immediately introduced to a form of ironic commentary. Whose words are these, to "develop our great West"? There is ambiguity as to whether they the words of the speculators, the homesteaders, or the narrator.

The first image of wealth and elevated society we are given is not of money, but rather of an undrained marsh. A marsh is ordinarily identified with rotting vegetation, and in this novel represents an untapped financial resource. It is therefore a symbol of waste, land that could be productive but it is kept for aesthetic value. The later destruction of the marsh will help identify the transition of power from one cultural era to another.

The title of the book, "Lost Lady" has many interesting interpretations throughout the novel. At any time "lost" can mean the pioneering era, Mrs. Forrester, or even Niel's perception of Mrs. Forrester. "Lady" is equally ambiguous. Mrs. Forrester represents a "lady" to Niel, but other views of her present a different perspective. It is important to pay close attention to when things are lost and to when we have references to a lady while reading this novel.

The description that Willa Cather gives of Captain Forrester is one of an already defeated man. He is described by what he used to be, not what he is. His further decline throughout the novel is symbolized by his reduction to first one crutch, then two. This is juxtaposed with the rise of Ivy Peters into a powerful man, showing the transition from one world to another.

Part I, Chapter 2

A group of boys, including Niel Herbert and George Adams, arrive at Mrs. Forresters house and politely ask to be allowed to fish in the marsh and have a picnic in the grove. They play most of the morning and during their lunch break Mrs. Forrester brings them all cookies. After she leaves, they are interrupted by the arrival of an ugly boy nicknamed Poison Ivy who is known to be a dog-killer. His real name is Ivy Peters, and he carries a gun in order to hunt on the property, although the other boys point out that hunting is forbidden on the Forrester lands.

Ivy spots a female woodpecker and shoots it down with a slingshot. He then grabs it once it wakes up, holds it head carefully between his fingers, and slits both of its eyes with a tiny blade. Ivy then releases the bird, and they watch it flounder in the air, hitting the branches and blindly whirling about. The bird finally finds its hole and enters it. In spite of being used to killing things, the boys take pity on the bird and Niel starts to climb the tree in order to put it out of its misery. He loses his balance near the top and falls, ending up lying without moving at his companions' feet.

Ivy carries Niel to the house where Mrs. Forrester has them call the doctor. She then kicks the other boys out of the house and takes care of Niel herself. He soon wakes up and realizes he has a broken arm, but he is comforted by the nice surroundings. The doctor arrives, fixes up his arm, and drives him home. Niel hates his own place, where his widower father has a relative take care of the housekeeping. Niel's family is poor, but distinguished by being related to Judge Pommeroy who serves as a lawyer for Captain Forrester.

Analysis

The initial description of the boys here is similar to that of Tom Sawyer. They are barefoot, carrying fishing rods and "just little boys from the town" (8). This is immediately followed with the extreme horror of Ivy cutting the bird's eyes. From this point on the reader sits on edge, aware that behind every idyllic scene is the possibility of grotesque violence.

It is significant that the woodpecker is female. One of the recurring images of the novel is an act of cutting whenever a woman is present in a sexual context. This is the first connection between females and cutting, an image that will occur in all of the sensual scenes between women and men, eventually becoming part of the male/female interaction. Other contexts to watch for this are when Ellinger and Mrs. Forrester are together in the woods and later when Niel cuts the phone wire.

Niel's act of falling is cleverly interposed between a short and then a long description of Captain Forrester's falling. This sense of falling is important because it leads to all the main relationships in the novel. For example, we are later told that Mrs. Forrester meets the Captain after she has fallen from a cliff. Thus when Niel is carried to Mrs. Forrester's bed it is a mimic of the later story of her being carried back to Captain Forrester's camp.

Notice also that Cather is combining images of violence and pain with sexual appeal and marriage. Niel has broken his arm, but all he cares about is the beauty of the Forrester's house and the smell of Mrs. Forrester. Her caring for him is similar to when Captain Forrester cared for her after rescuing her. Here we have the sense of mother and boy, but in Mrs. Forrester's tale we are aware of man and woman, later to be man and wife.

A distinction is drawn here between the drawing room and the outside world. When Mrs. Forrester kicks Ivy Peters out of her house, she is carefully separating the romantic interior from the outside violence struggling to get in. The fact that Ivy will eventually succeed in not only entering the house but also in dominating it is one of the central themes of the novel. His desire to harm the crafted image that the Forresters evoke is largely produced by his ejection in this scene.

It is important to notice here that Mrs. Forrester, in noticing the boys, distinguishes between Niel and George and the other "little boys". This distinction is based on their family reputations; Niel is the nephew of the local Judge, and George is the son of a wealthy rancher. An important background conflict in the novel is the loss of this distinction. As the nation expands, these fine small families will eventually be lumped into the same category as the other families. It is partially against this loss of identity that Niel is rebelling against when he later tries to preserve the facade that the Forresters create.

Part I, Chapter 3

Over the next few years Niel does not get to see too much of Mrs. Forrester, although he is always invited to her house for parties and social events. The town of Sweet Water has started falling apart, with most of the gentleman ranchers leaving and even Niel's father being forced to sell his house and move to Denver. Niel remains as an apprentice lawyer with his uncle, Judge Pommeroy. By the time he is nineteen, he is living in a room behind the law offices and keeping the place immaculately clean. Even his uncle has grown proud of him over the years.

One afternoon before Christmas Niel is working in his uncle's offices when Mrs. Forrester arrives. She invites both the Judge and Niel to come dine with her the next evening, and then makes Niel leave the office in order to drive her home. Mrs. Forrester tells Niel that the Ogdens are coming, and that it will be his job to entertain their daughter, a girl of nineteen. When they arrive at her place she invites him in and tells him that she could not go on vacation this year due to financial constraints. She also mentions that Captain Forrester is getting much older and is starting to have problems with his health.

Analysis

Niel's perception of Mrs. Forrester is one of the great dramatic elements of the novel. He serves as the innocent observer with romantic illusions. The unfortunate tragedy of the novel is that we quickly become aware that this illusion will soon turn to disillusionment. "He was proud now that at the first moment he had recognized her as belonging to a different world from any he had ever known" (33). The reader will soon discover in the next few chapters that this view of her is nonsense, a romanticized delusion.

Part I, Chapter 4

Judge Pommeroy and Niel go to the Forrester house and meet the Ogdens. Niel tries unsuccessfully to talk to Constance, but soon gives up and speaks with her mother instead. A large man named Frank Ellinger is also present, a bachelor aged forty, and he serves the first round of drinks. Niel watches while Constance flirts openly with Frank and is disappointed to discover that he has to sit next to her at the dining table.

Mr. Forrester is a model host, and Ellinger and Judge Pommeroy keep the conversation going. We are told that Ellinger was a "wild" youth, prone to going outside during the day with prostitutes. Mrs. Ogden is described as a very plain woman who acts too pretentious for her looks. She turns to Captain Forrester, and, in a thick East Virginia drawl, asks him to tell her daughter how he found his home.

Captain Forrester relates how he went to work for the railroads right after the civil war. He found the spot in Sweet Water after being lost one day, and planted a willow tree to mark the spot, with the intent of buying the land someday. Several years later he did, and after a bad first marriage he eventually settled on the land with the current Mrs. Forrester. He describes his philosophy to them, namely that if someone wants something enough then they will likely get it.

After dinner they play cards, and soon the Judge and Niel leave. Mrs. Forrester catches Niel at the door and makes him promise to return the next day. That night before bed she hears a noise downstairs and finds Frank drinking some brandy. She goes to him and warns him to be careful, implying that Constance may be trying to watch them. She tells him to go to bed sleep.

Analysis

Niel's premonition that he dislikes Frank serves to foreshadow for the reader that everything may not be right in Mrs. Forrester's world. However, this will remain hidden to Niel for a while even as it becomes apparent to everyone else.

Captain Forrester tells the story about finding his current place. We are told that he takes it from the Indians, indicating the replacement of one group with another. However, look what Cather does in the next description of him: "Something forbidden had come into his voice, the lonely, defiant note that is so often heard in the voices of old Indians" (45). The Captain will be replaced himself, by Ivy Peters. This is a cycle that will go on and on, one group replacing another.

The Captain's philosophy is fascinating in that it is so unrealistic yet will have a profound influence on Niel. He states that America was dreamed into existence. This imagines that simply wishing for something can bring it about. We will see Niel try to hold on to the past, as if it were a mythological dream, while around him the world changes. This philosophy is reinterpreted sarcastically by Niel in Part II, Chapter 1.

Part I, Chapter 5

The next morning Niel returns to the Forrester house and watches as Mrs. Forrester and Ellinger take a sleigh into town together. His job is to remain in the house and keep Constance company. In the sleigh, Mrs. Forrester turns to Frank and comments on how glad she is to be away from the Ogdens and Constance. He laughs and asks her about Niel, whom she describes as a nice boy stuck in the small town.

They are clearly lovers, and soon Mrs. Forrester leads Frank into a cedar grove where they can have privacy. Adolph Blum, one of Niel's young friends, is hunting in the area and he comes across them. He watches while Franks puts Mrs. Forrester back in the sleigh and sees them drive away. He will keep their secret because Mrs. Forrester has always been nice to him and illegally bought game from him during the closed hunting season.

Analysis

This chapter gives us one of only two moments when we see Mrs. Forrester by herself, not acting for others. "Mrs. Forrester sat with her eyes closed, her cheek pillowed on her muff, a faint, soft smile on her lips." Notice that alone she is able to keep her eyes closed and she can smile to herself. The fact that her secret is discovered by Adolph Blum has no bearing on the novel because he realizes that he is seeing a glimpse of her that no one else ever sees, a side that he will keep secret.

In this sensual scene we have the imagery of cutting again: "When the strokes of the hatchet rang out from the ravine, he could see her eyelids flutter...soft shivers went through her body" (55). The very act of cutting can be interpreted as sexual stimulation, a form of male aggression towards the woman.

Part I, Chapter 6

The winter provides Niel a chance to get to know Mrs. Forrester very well. After a major snowstorm he gets the Forrester's mail and brings it to the house. Mr. Forrester greet him and informs him that Mrs. Forrester has a headache and is in bed, but she soon emerges and Niel realizes that she has been drinking. They all have tea together and talk until the evening when Mr. Forrester falls asleep in his chair.

Mrs. Forrester and Niel go outside and run down the hill through the snow. She tells him that she is incredibly bored, unable to get exercise while sitting in her house all winter. When she mentions that Niel has thin shoulders, he thinks about Frank Ellinger and is annoyed. Niel's admiration for Mrs. Forrester is based on her perceived loyalty to her husband. He is charmed by the proprieties that she upholds yet seems to mock.

Analysis

Niel has fallen in love with what Mrs. Forrester represents. We are told here that he likes her for her loyalty to the Captain. The mistake that he makes is to assume that she is a lady on whom the Captain depends. Niel has thus far failed to see that Mrs. Forrester actually depends on the Captain for her aristocratic surroundings.

This is the first chapter where Mrs. Forrester's drinking is explicitly remarked upon. As the Captain starts to fail more and more, her drinking will increase. The connection between drinking and the Captain is related to the desire to forget or escape. Only through alcohol is Mrs. Forrester able to escape into her own thoughts while living with the Captain.

Part I, Chapter 7

On evenings during the winter when Niel is not playing cards with the Forresters, he sits in his room and reads novels. We are told that Niel avoids the philosophy novels, preferring to read about how men feel and live. Reading the classics makes Niel want to become an architect.

One day in the spring Mr. Forrester receives a telegram informing him that a savings banks has gone bankrupt, a bank in which he was heavily invested. Judge Pommeroy and Captain Forrester leave to visit the bank and see whether they can recover the money. Niel remains in the town and eats at the local hotel. On the third day he sees that Frank Ellinger is in town, and thinks that it is inappropriate for him to visit Mrs. Forrester at a time like this.

Niel awakes the next morning and decides to visit Mrs. Forrester before Frank has time to get from the hotel to her house. He walks through the meadows on the way to the house and cuts some wild roses to give to Mrs. Forrester. When he arrives at the house, he hears two voices on the inside and knows that one of them belongs to Frank. Outraged, he runs down the hill and dumps the roses into the mud. He is not morally offended, but rather mad that his mental image of Mrs. Forrester has been ruined.

Analysis

We again have the imagery of savage cutting juxtaposed on a sensual scene. However, this time the cutting leads to roses in the mud, a sign of destroyed love. "It was not a moral scruple she had outraged, but an aesthetic ideal" (72). Niel's perception of Mrs. Forrester has been shaken at the foundations, and his roses are thrown away, representing his first rejection of her.

Part I, Chapter 8

Captain Forrester returns home a ruined man, having been forced to pay out his own money in order to guarantee the depositors in the bank their money. The other directors of the bank had only wanted to pay fifty cents on the dollar. Judge Pommeroy turns to Niel after relating the story and tells him to become an architect, saying that the law profession had lost his respect after watching the Captain so honorably meet the debts while the other five bank directors merely watched.

When Mrs. Forrester goes to wake up her husband for lunch, he has suffered a stroke. He survives, and soon Cyrus Dalzell, the president of the Colorado and Utah Railroad, shows up to see how he is doing. Cyrus tells Mrs. Forrester that he and his wife are going to make sure that the Forresters come and visit them the next winter, saying that his wife has already arranged it.

Analysis

In many novels of this period, especially those dealing with Realism or Naturalism, money and health go hand-in-hand. The same occurs in this novel, where a loss of money leads to a stroke for the Captain. It is important to notice in the second half of the novel that the opposite will occur for Ivy Peters, whose increased fortunes give rise to increased sexual virility.

Notice the emphasis on honor that leads the Captain to pay out all his own money. The Judge state that he despises the new generation of bankers and lawyers. This is part of the changing world order, where the old world is paying to be replaced by the new one.

Part I, Chapter 9

Niel has applied to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in order to study architecture. He goes to say goodbye to the Forresters on his last day in Sweet Water. They have started to treat him like a man, and Captain Forrester toasts him. After leaving the house, Niel wonders what Mrs. Forrester does with her aristocratic charm when she spends time with a coarse man like Ellinger.

Analysis

The first part of A Lost Lady ends with Niel's departure. It imparts a sense of impending doom; there has been the financial ruin of the Forresters and many of the young people are leaving the town. The transition to the second part will shift the subject of the novel from one of old world decline to new world growth. The ruin of the Forresters represents the end of regional America. We are now going to see a transition to a national world, in which people like Ivy Peters hold business interests all over the country.

Part II, Chapter 1

It is two years before Niel returns to Sweet Water. He meets Ivy Peters on the train and learns what has happened in the meantime. Ivy has drained the marsh on the Forrester property and converted the land into profitable wheat fields, paying the Forresters rent. He adds that Mrs. Forrester has started drinking rather heavily and laughs about the fact that the Forresters are now at the same financial level as everyone else.

After Ivy has left him, Niel looks out the window and reflects on the fact that pioneers like the Forresters had conquered the land, but been unable to hold it. Men like Ivy are able to come along and take it from them, converting it into profit. Niel sees the draining of the marsh as a metaphor for the decline of the western spirit.

Analysis

After meeting Ivy Peters on the train, Niel recalls the philosophy of Captain Forrester. "The Old West had been settled by dreamers, great-hearted adventurers who were unpractical to the point of magnificence" (89). However, in this romanticized description that Niel gives, we realize that this is not the West as anyone else knows it, the rough and tumble free-for-all that most people think of. Niel too is aware of his hypocrisy, "[The Ivy Peters] would drink up the mirage" (90). He thus realizes that his description is all a mirage, it is nonsense. Niel knows that the pioneers were just as bad as Ivy Peters, that they were the ones that cut the "primeval forest". He also realizes that people like Ivy Peters will make the match-sticks out of the wood that their ancestors cut.

Cather is very careful to point out the satisfaction that Ivy gets out of draining the marsh. This action is a direct attack on the Captain, a man who stands for flowers and aesthetic beauty. It represents the raw violence in everything Ivy does directly contrasted with the aesthetic qualities of the Captain's view of life.

Part II, Chapter 2

Niel visits the Forresters and is shown a sun-dial that the Captain has recently received from Dalzell. The Captain has grown older and heavier since Niel last saw him. Niel then goes to visit Mrs. Forrester, whom he finds lying in a hammock in a cottonwood grove. She calls him handsome and asks him all about his life at college. When he asks about the marsh, she indicates that they need the money and complains that she is having trouble taking care of the house by herself.

They return to the house and Niel waits with the Captain while he shuffles into the house. As Niel is about to leave, the Captain gives him some letters to drop off, and then gives him a letter that Mrs. Forrester needs mailed. The letter is addressed to Frank Ellinger, and Niel tries to hide it when he gets it. The Captain stops him and comments on his wife's fine handwriting. Niel leaves the house with the feeling that Captain Forrester knows everything there is to know about his wife.

Analysis

A powerful symbol to emerge in this chapter is that of the granite sundial. There are several interpretations that can be attributed to this symbol, which foremost acts as an emblem of the classical past, an instrument used in antiquity. By watching time go by, we see the Captain slowly counting down the last moments of his life. Thus it also represents the inexorable march to death via the slow rotation of the shadows. Later it will become an emblem that time has stopped, when the Captain's death culminates in having the sun-dial placed on his grave.

Niel's encounter with Mrs. Forrester leads to an interesting description of her as a bird. "How light and alive she was! like a bird caught in a net" (92). We cannot help but think of the first scene where the bird is injured. This scene symbolically foreshadows the death of Captain Forrester, after which Mrs. Forrester will act like the bird, flying around blindly struggling to find her proper home.

We learn that Niel hold the belief that Captain Forrester knows everything about his wife. The key moment is when we learn that he always looks at her handwriting. Since she has been writing to Ellinger for years, it is obvious that he would have been intimately aware of their friendship, if not necessarily their relationship.

Part II, Chapter 3

Niel had planned to do a lot of reading in the Forrester's grove during the summer, but the presence of Ivy Peters starts to keep him away. He watches one day while Ivy flirts with Mrs. Forrester, and in a rage he goes over to the Captain and blurts out that Ivy has the manners of a pig.

A few weeks later, when the wheat is ripe, Niel takes a late night walk. He comes across Mrs. Forrester standing on a bridge and greets her. Ivy Peters emerges from her house and tells her that he will start cutting the wheat the next morning. After he leaves, Niel asks Mrs. Forrester why she lets him be so impolite to her. She replies that Ivy is a savvy businessman and that he is also investing some money on her behalf. Niel learns that she is desperate to escape from the town and the boredom, and that she is hoping Ivy will provide her with enough money to get away. Niel realizes that she is starting to get old and is hoping to keep up her youthful vigor, and he starts to feel frightened for her.

Analysis

Niel has not yet realized at this point in the novel that Mrs. Forrester is like an empty vessel that the Captain fills. She has no existence without a man in her life, and her value is derived from his values. It is therefore ironic that she is desperate to get away, to continue her aristocratic life somewhere else in California.This irony will become evident to Niel later on when he learns that even after the Captain's death she continues to pay for flowers to be put on his grave, indicating that she respects and loves the man.

Part II, Chapter 4

Niel reads in the newspaper that Frank Ellinger has married Constance Ogden. He tries to go visit Mrs. Forrester that night, knowing that she will be upset, but he cannot cross the creek that has been flooded out with recent rains. That night at midnight Mrs. Forrester shows up at his door, having crossed the stream by dangerously walking across a submerged bridge. She demands that he telephone Frank Ellinger for her and Niel does it.

Niel is aware that the woman connecting the phone call will likely listen to the conversation, and he starts to get worried when Mrs. Forrester becomes passionate. The phone call ends in disaster, with Mrs. Forrester telling Frank that she hates him. Niel saves her reputation by cutting the connecting wire, thereby preventing her words from being heard. She falls asleep after the phone call and Niel puts her into his bed. He gets the Judge to go stay with her and the next morning tells Captain Forrester that she is at his place, having been forced to answer a long distance phone call during the night.

Analysis

It is important to note the descriptions of Captain Forrester throughout this novel because they foreshadow what will happen to him. Whereas he was previously compared to an old Indian, here he is described as a mandarin, an image of wiseness. This, combined with Niel's premonitions, means that he probably knows all about Mrs. Forrester's infidelities.

We again have the imagery of cutting in the presence of lovers. In this scene, only the second scene where we see Mrs. Forrester as herself, Niel cuts the phone wire to protect her reputation. However, it soon becomes clear that it is not just her reputation that he is trying to protect, but rather his image of her as Captain Forrester's wife. In this sense Niel is living in the past; he denies the present even when events come to him. This helps to explain the reason why he will later choose to sit in for his uncle as a lawyer rather than continue his studies as an architect. Rather than deal with new things, Niel would rather preserve the past.

Part II, Chapter 5

Captain Forrester suffers from another stroke and Mrs. Forrester is unable to take care of him anymore. The local women come to help her and manage to investigate the entire house, surprised by the fact that it is the same as their own places. Mrs. Forrester ceases to care about the house, and the women run all over it. Niel overhears their conversations, in which they all want pieces of the silver, the glasses, or the linen.

Highly offended, Niel tells his uncle that he will skip school for a year and take care of the Forresters, kicking out the gossips in the process. They become much happier with him to nurse them, and Captain Forrester enjoys being allowed to spend time outside. Being in the house convinces Niel that the Captain knows his wife better than she knows herself.

Analysis

Maturity is a loss of magic, most notably expressed through Niel in this chapter. After the town discovers that the house is the same as everyone else's, that it is only the pretense and the attitude that lent the house its superior demeanor, Niel chooses to attempt to restore the house to its full reputation. He is willing to give up a year of his college studies in order to maintain his childhood beliefs concerning the Forresters. This is both a sad and a disillusioning moment because Niel is trying to preserve the Forrester's reputation relative to the town, not to himself. However, in all his actions there is an element of trying to preserve them for himself as well.

Part II, Chapter 6

Captain Forrester dies in early December, but none of his friends from abroad are able to come to the funeral. Adolph Blum, the boy who saw Mrs. Forrester with Frank Ellinger in the woods several years earlier, gives her a large box of yellow roses. Mrs. Forrester chooses to place the granite sun-dial on the Captain's grave. That evening she makes tea and drinks it with only Niel and Judge Pommeroy.

Analysis

The death of the Captain culminates in Mrs. Forrester choosing to place his granite sun-dial, a symbol of wasting time, onto his grave. At this point it becomes a marker of permanent time as well as a marker of the permanent death of the pioneering age. Representing a long gone era, the sun-dial is the last remnant of the world that Captain Forrester inhabited.

Part II, Chapter 7

Niel's uncle has come down with rheumatic fever, and as a result Niel has taken over the law offices. One day Mr. Ogden arrives and informs Niel that he is considering lobbying in Washington for an increase in Mrs. Forrester's pension. When he finds out that she has switched lawyers, now relying on Ivy Peters, he is quite distressed. After some moments he makes up his mind to give up and leave.

Ivy Peters has started spending much more time at the Forrester place since the Captain's death. He often plays cards with Mrs. Forrester in the evening and has started bringing young friends there. The local gossips comment that Mrs. Forrester has begun chasing younger men, and Niel finally approaches her about it. She laughs and tells him that it is better to have guests than be bored. She hopes to sell the house and move to California. Niel stops going to see her, and his uncle has turned against her since she made Ivy Peters her lawyer.

Analysis

Part of what Niel fears the most is that Mrs. Forrester will not remain the Captain's wife. Even though the Captain is dead, there is an expectation that she will continue to play the part of the lady, that she will uphold the dignity of the old traditions. That this is no longer the case is made evident by her switching to Ivy Peters as her personal lawyer. This simple action severs her ties to her husbands' old friends, and it simultaneously launches her into the world that is being built by Ivy.

Part II, Chapter 8

Mrs. Forrester stops by the law offices one day and invites Niel to dine with her. She has invited several of the other boys in the town, and Ivy Peters is in charge of the drinks. Niel notices how completely inappropriate the boys act in her house, but they do at least all jump up whenever Mrs. Forrester enters the room. Niel carves the meat, but watches while the boys mostly eat rather than make conversation.

After dinner they sit around and smoke. Niel prompts Mrs. Forrester to tell the story of how she met Captain Forrester. He remembers when his uncle told him that she had been engaged to a millionaire who was murdered by another woman's husband. In order to escape the publicity, she was smuggled out to a mountain cottage. While on a mountain climbing trip one day, she and her friend fell. Luckily she was caught in a pine tree and it was Captain Forrester's search party that found her. When he asked to marry her, she immediately agreed. Niel feels as if the right man could still save her.

Analysis

Niel tells us his version of how she met Captain Forrester, not her story. He is caught up in his fantasy of what her life should be like rather than accepting what it really is. This ties in with his feeling that the right man could still save her. However, as has become quite clear throughout the novel, Niel is not, nor every going to be, the type of man that could support a woman like Mrs. Forrester.

Her story focuses heavily on how she was saved by Captain Forrester after falling. This story brings to mind Niel's fall in the beginning. By putting his fall into context with her fall, we see that falling is the unifying theme that creates all of the great relationships in the novel. This is again the juxtaposition of pain with romance, the broken arm that Niel gets contrasted with the broken legs that Mrs. Forrester ends up with.

Part II, Chapter 9

The Judge recovers his health and Niel prepares to return to college. He realizes that he has watched the end of the pioneer era, and he is sad that Mrs. Forrester is not willing to be a pioneer's wife, but wants to live in the new social order as well. Niel went to bid her goodbye, but saw from a distance how Ivy Peters entered the house and put his arms around her. Niel leaves feeling contempt for her. He realizes that it was the Captain who lent the Forrester place its charm, and not Mrs. Forrester as he had always assumed. Mrs. Forrester eventually moves away and Ivy Peters brings a new wife to live in the house there.

The last that Niel hears about Mrs. Forrester is when he is in Chicago. He meets one of his old friends who tells him that he met Mrs. Forrester several years earlier, living in Brazil, married to a rich Englishman. However, he tells Niel that she died three years prior, and that the Englishman gave a bequest to Captain Forrester's grave in order to keep it supplied with flowers.

Analysis

Although A Lost Lady is a novel about the death of the pioneer age, it is also a romance. Mrs. Forrester is not content to allow her life to end with her husband's death. Instead, she will use Ivy Peters to advance herself until she can marry the wealthy Englishman. For Niel the novel is a tragedy in the sense that Mrs. Forrester is not willing to die as a pioneer's wife. He cannot understand why she wants to continue living in the new society rather than his idealized version of the old.

By the time this novel ends there has been a complete reverse of the regionalism so prevalent throughout the entire book. Cather departs from Sweet Water for the first time ever. This transition serves to highlight what has been hinted at, but not explicitly stated in other sections, namely the nationalization of fame. The Forresters have been replaced by much larger names, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller. Indeed, by having Mrs. Forrester marry an Englishman, Cather is almost proclaiming that the world has already taken the next step and gone international. People like Niel rebel against this change because they, the lawyers, bankers, doctors, and intelligentsia, are losing their place in the society. Niel wants to hold onto the regionalism because it makes him important within his society; he wants to remain "Niel Herbert, Judge Pommeroy's nephew," distinguishable in a group of little boys by virtue of his uncle's position. This is what Niel has really lost, and we can consider Mrs. Forrester to be the symbol of this loss, hence she is Niel's "lost lady".

• Biography of Willa Cather
• About A Lost Lady
• Character List
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 1-3
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 4-6
• Summary and Analysis of Part I, Chapters 7-9
• Summary and Analysis of Part II, Chapters 1-3
• Summary and Analysis of Part II, Chapters 4-6
• Summary and Analysis of Part II, Chapters 7-9
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