![]() Sixteen years after John Bergson’s death, “…Came the hard times that brought everyone on the divide to the Brink of despair three years of drought and failure…” (Cather 28). ![]() Even after his death, his children have to contend with famines that make the life for the early immigrants almost unbearable. John Bergson loses his entire flock in one winter as he tries to settle in Nebraska (Cather 6). The weather patterns were also a contributing factor in making the immigrants’ early experiences tough. Therefore, the immigrant experience was one of struggle and hardship in an effort to tame the wild Nebraskan land for their farming and habitation. The early immigrants, as illustrated by the Bergson’s case, were in an invariant struggle for survival. He strives to establish himself economically in a tough and unforgiving environment: “In eleven years, John Bergson had made but little impression upon the land he had come to tame” (Cather 6). John Bergson’s struggle for survival as he endeavors to raise his family captures the life story of most of the early immigrants. ![]() ![]() The immigrants were farmers and ranchers whose aim was to obtain food for themselves and their families, as well as to rear animals in the farms for economic purposes. The settlers into Nebraska, for instance, the Bergsons, mainly originated from European countries such as Sweden and Norway. ![]()
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