Alexandra Bergson The novels protagonist Alexandra Bergson is a model of emotional strength courage and resolve As the eldest child of the Swedish immigrant John Bergson she inherits his farm and makes it profitable Particularly suited to the toil of prairie life she is a prototype of the strong American pioneer and an embodiment of the untamed American West Creating Civilization in the Wild If as Cather famouly claimed the land is the hero of O Pioneers then the novel is fundamentally a story