Character Analysis
Let's get one thing straight: we don't like these guys.
And guess what? There's nothing wrong with that.
O Pioneers! straight up portrays Alexandra's brothers as bad people. Even when the narrator seems to be throwing them a bone of sympathy, it's not quite enough to get most readers to sympathize with them.
Of course, there's no question that Lou and Oscar are two very different people. But as characters in a novel, there almost always paired together, like one dark cloud threatening Alexandra's frontier paradise.
Their character descriptions often seem generous, given their actions. But don't be fooled. The narrator is deft at dipping seemingly neutral statements in a pot of poison, just before letting them fly. Check out the following passage, for instance:
Like most of their neighbors, [Lou and Oscar] were meant to follow in paths already marked out for them, not to break trails in a new country. A steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, and they would have been very happy. It was no fault of theirs that they had been dragged into the wilderness when they were little boys. A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves. (1.4.1)
At first glance, it sounds like the narrator is making an excuse for their nasty behavior. We could sum it up as follows: Don't blame them, they didn't ask to live on the Divide. But that's hardly the attitude this novel takes toward people living on the frontier.
It's not impossible to make it on the Divide; it just takes people (ahem, Alexandra) who "love it and understand it," and soon the land will make miracles (5.3.25). Actually, far from defending Lou and Oscar, a passage like this one completely excludes them from sympathy, by portraying them as bitter and helpless.