SOURCE: Sutton, John L. “The Regional Form as a Commodified Site in Hamlin Garland's Main-Travelled Roads.” Midamerica 23 (1996): 56-63.

In the following essay, Sutton views Hamlin Garland's short stories of rural Midwestern farm life as social commentary on the tensions between regional and national identity.

In “God's Ravens” (published in the June 1894 issue of Harper's), Hamlin Garland's protagonist, Robert Bloom, feels he can escape the pressures of life in Chicago by moving back to the coulees of his native Wisconsin. This escape is not as complete as he thinks. Bloom is unable to assume the simple life he longs for and he relapses into a serious illness. Garland's ending suggests that Bloom's problem comes from his inability to see the rural inhabitants of Wisconsin as people, as a real community. Instead, Bloom's plan to commodify their quaint ways turns them into objects which he can sell to publishers in...