So Big

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and gender discrimination. 

“I want you to realize that this whole thing is just a grand adventure. A fine show.”

Simeon Peake imbues his young daughter, Selina, with a sense of wonder and wistfulness that she carries with her throughout her life. There is a disconnect, he suggests, between people and reality. Rather than enduring her sadness, she should remember that she is just watching a show. Simeon suggests to Selina that she is just one of the characters in her beloved fictions, and she carries this sensibility into adulthood.

“Cabbages is beautiful!”

Selina’s praise of the beauty of the natural world is hilarious to Klaas Pool. To him, cabbages are part of the drab fabric of existence. They are grown, they are sold, and the profits are used to raise the family. That Selina should be able to find a beauty in something as ordinary as cabbages, coupled with Klaas’s reaction, illustrates the difference between herself and the rest of High Prairie.

“Then both turned to look at this audacious female who thus interrupted men’s conversation.”

Klaas and Jakob do not explicitly condemn Selina for interrupting their conversation, but their moment of stunned silence demonstrates the extent to which women are marginalized in this community. The idea that a woman would have a question about farming shocks the men, so much so that they do not know how to respond. This incident foreshadows Selina’s determination to involve herself (very successfully) in what is considered  men’s work.