One of Ours discussion

I was surprised that Cather didn't resolve the Enid plot line in the book. After she leaves for China--and especially during the final two sections of the book--she isn't mentioned at all. No letters, no resolution.

I found it interesting that Cather didn't use some common conventions of war literature like letters. Perhaps this was an intentional thing. Still, I felt like that was one plot line that was left unresolved.

I feel like this was intentional to prove how little Enid really meant to Claude. He strove to become "one of ours" to his family and one facet of that was to get married. Once he does marry Enid, he realizes that she doesn't bring him happiness like he had thought.

I feel as though both Claude and Enid were trying to find where they belonged in the world, which is why they gravitated to each other in Nebraska and then didn't speak once they were worlds apart.

A lot is left unresolved. What happened to Bayliss, Ralph, and Gladys? Once Cather moved the setting to Europe, their roles were over. The only characters we glimpsed again were the mother and Mahailey.

I thought maybe Cather was using "code" to tell us that Enid was a lesbian. We certainly know she was sexually repulsed by men, which we found out on the wedding night. (Was the marriage even consummated, ever?) And before that, when Claude told Mr. Royce his intention to marry Enid, Mr. Royce tried to warn him away, telling him Enid was a vegetarian and that if Mrs. Royce had another daughter, he would take Enid into his office. He felt she would run a business better than she would run a home.

Or maybe she was just asexual.