O.E. Rölvaag’s thesis in the novel is well hidden throughout the text of the novel, but his purpose is very clear. The purpose of the book is to give the reader a full experience of how life was like for an immigrant to start all over again in an unknown, unexplored habitat. It also furnishes the reader with the knowledge of the hardship and consequences that the alien settlers dealt with on the prairie. The topics that Rölvaag writes about in the novel are those of manual labor for survival and the mental state of each character a ....