In the following excerpt, Arnold gives an overview of Cather's "Neighbour Rosicky" and examines Cather's use of integrating devices to create a sense of balance, wholeness, and unity in the story.

The first story in the collection [Obscure Destinies], "Neighbour Rosicky," may have been written as E. K. Brown believes, in "the early months of 1928, when her [Cather's] feelings were so deeply engaged by her father's illness and death" [Willa Cather: A Critical Biography, 1953]. It is generally agreed that the portrait of Anton Rosicky is a composite picture of both Antonia's (Annie Pavelka's) husband and Charles Cather, Willa's father. Excruciating though the loss of her father must have been, Cather does not use "Neighbour Rosicky" to vent bitter feelings about death and loss. Rather, she makes the story an expression of acceptance and faith. In "Neighbour Rosicky" death is not a confinement, nor is it a rupture...