A Wagner Matinée Literary Elements

Short story

Boston in the late 1800's

First-person narrator

The tone is observant and poignant, the mood emotional.

The protagonist is Clark; to him, the antagonist is life on the Nebraska plains.

The conflict is one perceived by the narrator, Clark: an internal conflict between Aunt Georgiana's love of music and the harsh monotony of life on the Nebraskan prairie.

The climax is the concert when Aunt Georgiana becomes emotional listening to the music.

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Throughout the text, Cather alludes to musicians and music history. Clark also alludes to Franz-Joseph-Land, an uninhabited archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, and the Upper Congo, a region in Central Africa. Both were sites of European exploration and colonization at the time of Cather's writing. Clark compares Aunt Georgiana's arrival in Boston to the return of an explorer from these remote, supposedly dangerous regions.

Clark describes in great detail the beauty of the musicians appearing on stage. He also uses simile, metaphor, and vivid descriptions to evoke the desolation of the Nebraskan prairie.

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