In fact this is not the only language that alludes to sexual organs, another example, perhaps one with more direct symbolism, occurs when Tom describes the Tower inside the mesa. The tower is depicted as “well-proportioned [...] swelling to a larger circumference a little above the base, then becoming slender again. There was something symmetrical and powerful about the bulge of the brickwork.”14 By sexualizing the topography of Tom's surroundings, Cather engages in the masculine sublime. By using masculine language to describe the canyon and mesa landscape, Cather is advancing the historical idea that the wilderness is a feminized place intended to be dominated by masculine ideals. Indeed, Cather goes on to describe the tower as “the beautiful thing that held together all the chaos of the houses and gave them meaning.” discovers. This is confirmed by Thomas P. Slaughter, who claims that an explorer is “the first to claim a discovery and report it in print, in a European language.” Men have therefore always been the only ones who have given meaning to their own, often feminised, life,