Hardships faced by the Ingall family (Chapter 6)

Little House on The Prairie, Chapter 6

• Throughout Little House on The Prairie, we see that the Ingall family face a wide array of hardships.

• From the very outset of chapter 6 we find out that the Ingalls are already facing difficulties when they move in to their new house, there are many issues with the house such as a lack of windows and doors, they are also without a stable for pet and patty.

• What makes this situation even worse is a bit further on into the chapter, Pa hears wolves nearby, which makes it even more vital to build the stable to make sure that they are protected, if the wolves happen to get closer to their new home.

• Ma was less worried about the looming situation as she said to Pa “Well, you have your gun, so I’ll not worry”. Pa was feeling a lot less safe as he in considered the protector of the family, and he wont feel safe until the house is repaired properly.

• Besides the natural hardship of the wolves, whilst building the walls, Pa was also faced with hardship of the weather conditions,as if it wasn’t hard doing these jobs on his own, he was holding down the canvas, whilst encountering very extreme winds. This led Laura to believe that he “must let go or sail into the air like a bird”.

• Even when Pa finished of the walls, the house still lacked windows and doors, the canvas was all they had for in terms of a roof. These hardships only multiply in their seriousness especially as a family with young children.

• In this chapter, one of the social hardships is that they are miles away from their family in the big woods, and it would be very hard to communicate with them as they are roughly 40 miles for the post office.

• Another social hardship for the Ingall family is isolation and loneliness, this is due to them packing up and moving miles away from their family in pursuit of a better life. These social hardships are also a great disadvantage in this chapter with the Ingall family thing to fix the house in extreme weather conditions. It is this sense of self-reliance that the Ingall family portray as also as an aspect of the American Dream that many other families alike were trying to achieve.

• Pa relies on himself for pretty much everything, he chooses where they will build their home, to support and feed his family he plows seeds and collects furs to trade.

• All of Wilder’s books take place in the period of the westward expansion in the United States. They travel in search of land to claim as their own, or they would simply take over land that didn't belong to them in the first place. 
• For the Ingalls, as well as many other families alike, holding on to the land that they claimed could be very tough as they would have to survive anything from brutal weather condition to settlers trying to overthrow them.