The 1920s are a time somewhat paradoxically described as an anachronistic time rife with social upheaval. Willa Cather's The Professor's House sheds light on this difficult period by detailing the life of Godfrey St. Peter, an academic caught between the past and the future, between austerity and materialism, between permanence and ephemerality. While rejecting the modernity imposed on him, Saint Peter finds comfort in memories and in the earth, in short, in that which cannot be tempered by time, but which remains alone. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThe death of Tom Outland, representative of purity and brilliance for St. Peter, provides Cather with the opportunity to contrast the excesses of the 1920s with the blatant superficiality displayed by Louie, Saint-Pierre's charming but oblivious son-in-law. Using Outland's death and his position as heir as an excuse to increase his own wealth, Louie states: "We believe it is our duty in life to use this money as he would have liked - we have endowed with scholarships at his own university here, and that sort of thing. But we want to have our house as a sort of memorial to him. (The Professor's House, p. 31) Saint-Pierre, instead of confronting Louie about the advisability of naming his house after his wife's ex-fiancé, retreats to his own, as he calls it his wife, “a disapproving silence [that] can kill the life of any business. » (p. 35) Worse still, he praises the ostentatious demonstration that Rosamond, his daughter and Louie's wife, makes of the windfall she has encountered. As she enters the house one day dressed in purple, the color of royalty, he remarks to her: "'You know, those things with a kind of purple and lavender hidden in them are splendid on you... It's only recently that you started wearing them, Louie's taste, I suppose?' feels a pang in the past: “A sharp pain squeezed his heart That was why the light in Outland's laboratory burned late into the night (p. 74) Money causes other problems Augusta. , the family's maid, loses $500 in a shaky investment, and Rosamond refuses to use her great wealth to help him. St. Peter's colleagues treat him differently than Dr. Crane, an ailing physics professor. , threatens to sue for part of the inheritance he believes is rightfully his. In response, Saint-Pierre alienates himself, staying at home to work while the family is on vacation in France, knowing that " the office was a shelter you could hide behind, it was a hole you could crawl into." (p.141) The office and his old home bring back old memories of Tom, and Outland's journal on his stay in the southwest became a must for Saint-Pierre, in particular the stone city that he discovered. This sculpted city is described as "pale little stone houses huddled together... and in the middle of it all, a round tower". (p.180) The simple beauty of Tom's abode stands in stark contrast to the Marsellus' extravagant Outland, as do its artifacts: "Next to this spring were some of the most beautifully shaped water jars we have ever seen found..." (p. 187) Tom's idealism regarding the unblemished mesa ends when, upon his return months later from Washington, D.C., he learns that his partner and best friend has sold the trinkets of the mesa for four thousand dollars. Even when he is told the money will be used to pay his college tuition, he remains furious: "'You think I would get that money.