Cather scholar Laura Winters suggested that the novel 'represents the bitter apotheosis of the issues of exile Cather worked on all of her life'.[2]
Literary analyst Merrill Skaggs identified editor Viola Roseboro' as Cather's probable inspiration for Myra Henshawe, and posited that although Cather said the inspiration for Henshawe had died in 1911, this was a reference to Roseboro' having left McClure's Magazine (former workplace of both Roseboro' and Cather) in that year.[3]