Character Analysis
Though Carl is undeniably a Main Character—he's Alexandra's Main Squeeze, after all—we don't feel like he garners a whole lot of attention. We hardly feel like we even know him. He's always either coming or leaving, and though it's rarely a simple process, that's usually Alexandra's problem.
So, what can we say about this guy?
A lot, as it turns out.
Who You Callin' Sensitive?
If there's one thing that ties Carl and Alexandra together from the very beginning, it's the way they both chuck accepted gender norms out the window (for the most part). Now, this doesn't necessarily come with a value attached to it. In other words, not conforming isn't portrayed as good or bad in this novel. It's just what sets them apart from the other characters. But, since they're supposed to be the heroes, we'd better take note.
Let's check out some textual evidence. This, for instance, is the first physical description the narrator gives us of Carl:
He was a thin, frail boy, with brooding dark eyes, very quiet in all his movements. There was a delicate pallor in his thin face, and his mouth was too sensitive for a boy's. (1.1.12)
Carl is not your stereotypical, frontier Man-with-a-capital-M. He is "frail," "brooding," "delicate," and his mouth is "too sensitive for a boy's." Like Alexandra, the narrator portrays his gender as a little bit bent (check out Alexandra's "Character Analysis" for more). And it doesn't stop here. When Carl returns from his time away from the Divide, he still doesn't match the image of how a man his age is "expected" to be. Take a look:
He seemed to shrink into himself as he used to do; to hold himself away from things, as if he were afraid of being hurt. In short, he was more self-conscious than a man of thirty-five is expected to be. He looked older than his years and not very strong. (2.4.1)
So, why is that important? Well, some of this gender-bending appears to get translated into the dynamic of Carl's relationship with Alexandra. At least, that's how it appears to their critics, like Lou and Oscar. They see Carl as a man without means, who plans to marry Alexandra only to get access to her money and property. Check out this exchange between Alexandra and her brothers:
Lou and Oscar exchanged outraged looks. "Alexandra! Can't you see he's just a tramp and he's after your money? He wants to be taken care of, he does!"
"Well, suppose I want to take care of him? Whose business is it but my own?"
"Don't you know he'd get hold of your property?"
"He'd get hold of what I wished to give him, certainly." (2.10.16-18)
Now, Lou and Oscar don't come out and criticize Carl for his lack of manliness. Instead, they call him a "tramp." But just as they feel threatened by Alexandra's success as a farmer and businesswoman, it seems possible that they're likewise threatened by the reversal of roles in her relationship with Carl. After all, she's the breadwinner, and Carl would have to depend on her.
Living It Up Nebraska-Style
So Carl is not your typical man, and Alexandra is not your typical woman. Fine.
What else binds them? Well, for one, they both share a sense of disappointment with their chosen paths in life, and both seem to wish they could have had the life the other leads. This all comes up in a Really Important Discussion about freedom and personal choice, something that is definitely central in this novel.
The conversation goes something like this. Carl admits that he's disappointed in himself for not trying to make things work on the Divide—he just couldn't imagine succeeding, the way Alexandra has. But Alexandra doesn't understand. Think of all the freedom Carl had living in the big city. She puts it plainly, as usual: "I'd rather have had your freedom than my land" (2.4.22).
Well, that's an interesting revelation from Alexandra. She's not exactly the type to complain. But we're more interested in Carl's response, here. Take a look at what he says:
Carl shook his head mournfully. "Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him." (2.4.23)
Carl wants to set the record straight. Sure, the Divide might seem a little boring and suffocating, but it beats being a nobody in the big city. Describing himself as a "rolling stone," it's clear that Carl suffers from a sense of homelessness. What he really admires in Alexandra is her ability to create a successful homestead for herself and her family, to make something of herself at home.
We Dig a Good Graveyard, Too
In their first conversation about freedom, Alexandra isn't exactly convinced that she has the better lot. But in time, after making it through the trauma of Emil's murder and visiting Frank in prison, she'll come to appreciate what Carl has said. She will realize the freedom she does have, in belonging somewhere and having roots.
Again, Carl was there all along to help her towards this realization. This brings us back to that first conversation about freedom. Carl makes a lasting impression on Alexandra when they start reflecting on the lives of their forbears, talking about the old pioneer cemetery:
"Yes, sometimes, when I think about father and mother and those who are gone; so many of our old neighbors." Alexandra paused and looked up thoughtfully at the stars. "We can remember the graveyard when it was wild prairie, Carl, and now—"
"And now the old story has begun to write itself over there," said Carl softly. "Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years." (2.4.12-13)
Carl's reflections on "human stories" has a lot of significance for a novel like O Pioneers!, which is about the struggle of humans to root themselves, and to live out their "stories," in a strange, new land. But does what he says ring true? Are there really only a few human themes, and endless variations? The way he puts it, it sounds like humans don't have much say in the "stories" they live. There's no history; it's just the same old thing, over and over again. Not exactly uplifting stuff, right?
What Carl says here, sticks with Alexandra until the end of the novel. When Emil's murder takes her life from lonely but routine, to unrecognizable and incomprehensible, she can no longer accept the prospect that human lives are meaninglessly repetitive.
In this way, O Pioneers! turns on what Carl has to say in this passage. It's his metaphor of "human stories," which we write, and which write themselves, that ends up being one of the novel's central motifs.