In "A Wagner Matinee" by Willa Cather, Aunt Georgiana gave up her career as a trained pianist to move to Nebraska. She moved to the Great Plains with her husband, who had been a farmer, to start a new life and to help him with his farm. This move to the Nebraska prairie and the years of difficult physical labor that followed meant that Aunt Georgiana was no longer able to play the piano professionally, and she became disconnected from the cultural life that had once defined her. The story explores the tension between the physical and the spiritual, the beauty and the harshness of life, and the sacrifices we make for love and survival.