Laura Ingalls Wilder was raised with a strong work ethic. Her parent’s disliked being beholden to anyone and avoided putting themselves in a situation where they owed other people. When they were put in the situation to owe someone, they were quick to repay what they owed. Throughout the Little House on the Prairie books, the issues of personal responsibility came up regularly, but nowhere in the series does Laura emphasize the need for one to take care of one self and one’s own as she does in The Long Winter.
Muskrats and Humans
In the very first chapter of The Long Winter, ironically titled "Making Hay While the Sun Shines," Laura and Pa find a muskrat home. Pa is disturbed by what he sees. The muskrats have built a very sturdy and thick-walled home – it is by far the sturdiest muskrat home Pa has ever seen. He tells Laura that it will be a hard winter, and when Laura questions him, he tells her that the muskrats know how a winter will be and always build their homes accordingly.
Laura asks the obvious question. How can muskrats know? Pa says he isn’t sure, but God tells them somehow. Laura asks the next obvious question. Why doesn’t God tell us?
Pa gives the obvious answer “we’re not animals. We’re humans.” He goes on to explain that God created humans free which means we are responsible for taking care of ourselves. Laura poses another question. Doesn’t God take care of us?
Free Will and Responsibility
Pa’s response reveals a central value that is seen in action throughout the Little House books. He says that God does take care of us “so far as we do what’s right. And He gives us a conscience and brains to know what’s right. But He leaves it to us to do as we please. That’s the difference between us and everything else in creation.”
Laura asks another question. She wonders if muskrats can do what they please. Pa responds that they can’t. They have to build a muskrat house. They always have, and they always will. However, a human can build whatever kind of home he pleases, even if it doesn’t protect him adequately.
Obviously, the Ingall’s view of free will matches up with Webster’s definition “1: voluntary choice or decision 2: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.”
Laura Misleads the Reader
Early in The Long Winter, Laura imagines a conversation between Almanzo Wilder and his brother Royal. During their conversation, which was a debate about whether or not the winter would be as bad as the old Indian warned them, Laura makes an aside. She ‘reveals’ that Almanzo was not old enough to hold a claim. A homestead claimant had to be 21 years of age; she wrote that Almanzo was really nineteen. Archival evidence indicates that Wilder was of age and that Laura’s comment was misleading (Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend - John C. Miller).
Why would Laura change his age? Some arguments say that it was done for the purpose of minimizing the 10-year age difference between the two and to add dramatic tension to the story. Her change was also useful for supporting her agenda. During the rather lengthy aside, Laura shares Almanzo’s view of the law and of man’s personal responsibility.
Almanzo Wilder’s View on Independence
Almanzo understood that the government was willing to give land to anyone who had the gumption to come to the West, settle the land, grow crops “and stick to the job until it was done.” He understood that the rules that the government made for filing a claim were ways to regulate what they couldn’t control. However, he felt that many of those laws were silly and ineffective because they didn’t work as intended, and people found dozens of way to ‘steal’ the land according to the rules.
The heart of Almanzo’s (or could it really be Laura’s?) argument was the fact that “no two men were alike. You could measure cloth with a yardstick, or distance by miles, but you could not lump men together and measure them by any rule. Brains and character did not depend on anything but the man himself. Some men did not have the sense at sixty that some had at sixteen.” Laura goes on to write that Almanzo’s father agreed. She lists all the responsibilities that his father had given him and how Almanzo had filled every one of them.
Responsibility and Free Will
When Almanzo realizes that many of the citizens of De Smet are beginning to starve, he decides to search for some wheat that rumor claims a man within 20 miles of the town had harvested the summer before. Royal attempts to argue him out of it by suggesting that he wasn’t responsible for the people in town who had not had enough sense to set aside provisions for the winter. After a prolonged discussion, Almanzo declares that he will get that wheat because “this is a free country, and I am free and independent. I do as I please.”
Free Will Comes Full Circle
At the beginning of the novel, Laura and her father conclude that no one is responsible if people’s choices do not adequately provide for their needs. By the end of the novel, it is clear that while Almanzo and his brother agree with the theory, Almanzo has compassion and uses his free will to risk his life to save the town of De Smet. One of the many benefits of free will is the ability to act in compassion, something animals cannot do.
Sources
- free will. In Merriam Webster On-line Dictionary. Retrieved April 19, 2011. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free+will
- Miller, John C. Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend. Prologue Magazine Winter 2003, Vol. 35, No. 4.
- Wilder, Laura Ingalls. The Long Winter. Harper Collins. 1953
Melissa Howard - I am a stay-at-home Mom. My college education was in English and History and my last job was as a Technical Writer. Now that I ...
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