Jim And Antonia Case Study

Antonia knows the struggle firsthand since she has faced the harsh conditions of starting off in a new country since she is a Shimerda. Antonia tells Jim,“’ If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us’” (Cather 90). Antonia knows the racial difference between her and Jim. She has to work harder than the native speakers to be able to achieve what might come easily to them. Later on in the novel, Antonia goes off with a guy named Larry Donovan he informs her that his job has moved. This ended up being a lie. He leaves her whilst she's pregnant, so she becomes a single mom. Jim expresses his thoughts, “I was bitterly disappointed in her [Ántonia]. I could not forgive her for becoming an object of pity” (Cather 192). Jim expresses his dismay that Antonia has basically ruined her life by putting faith into a man of words. Antonia’s reputation fell drastically after this and it appears as though it would be hard to pick up. However, when Jim returns, he ends up being wrong. In the literary criticism, Anthony M. Dykema-VanderArk states, “She appears at the end of My Antonia as a figure who has tri­umphed over the hardships of her life through stal­wart struggle...ensuring an easier future for her children” (Dykema-VanderArk 211). Antonia has gone through a lot throughout her life. Her father’s death to ruining her reputation by being oblivious. Her race caused her to be inferior compared to the women that don't have to work in order to survive, but she still gives a good life to her children. Despite her hardships, she still kept to her strong attitude and doesn't sway away from it. That's success through the work she put

A4. There are a few characteristics that Antonia exhibits that lead to Cather's admiration of her. One of them is Antonia's ability to be a hard worker. For example, after Antonia's father died, she helped her mother and brother work in the fields. One quote that proves this is "If I rode over to see her where she was ploughing, she stopped at the end of the row to chat for a moment, then gripped her plough handles, clicked to her team, and waded on down the furrow, making me feel like she was now grown up and had no time for me". This quote shows that Antonia was growing up and becoming a hard worker in the aftermath of her father's death because she only talked to Jim for a moment before going back to work. Another characteristic that Antonia exhibits that led to Cather's admiration of her is her

My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a novel about Jim Burden and his relationship and experiences growing up with Antonia Shimerda in Nebraska. Throughout the book Jim reflects on his memories of Nebraska and the Shimerda family, often times in a sad and depressing tone. One of the main ways Cather is able to provoke these sad emotions within the reader is through the suicide of Antonia’s father, Mr. Shimerda. His death was unexpected by everyone and it is thought that homesickness is what drove him to take his own life. Homesickness was surely felt by Mr. Shimerda, as it was by many, but it was the failure to adequately find a way to provide for his family that sent Mr. Shimerda into a

In "My Antonia", Jim states that happiness means “ . . . to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep” (Book 1, Section 2). Jim, along with Antonia were two kids who traveled to Nebraska at a young age. They came from completely different socioeconomic statuses and despite Antonia's lack of language they eventually befriended each other and grew up together. From the very beginning of the book, we find out Jim's opinion on happiness as he is outstandingly intelligent and can easily express his thoughts. By the end of the book, however, through Antonia's words and actions, we find out that she agrees with Jim's definition of happiness.

. In Jim and Antonia’s relationship, Jim learned more because the book is from Nick’s point of view. When Jim moves to Nebraska, he starts over beginning a whole new stage of his life. He also meets a group of immigrants and begins to fall into the negative stereotypes people have about immigrants. One of the immigrants is Antonia, and she helps him learn that immigrants are people too. Throughout the story, Jim comes to appreciate the will and spirit that make immigrants like Ántonia so successful. In the book, it says “ The girls I knew were always helping to pay for plows and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten," This quote shows how Jim changed his point of view and learned to understand and appreciates immigrants hard work. Another

Each of the women face hardships with family, life in general, and men. Antonia a young, Bohemian girl is faced with many challenges and hardships throughout her life. After the death of her father, Antonia is obliged to start living by working in the fields alongside the men. Every member in her family depends on her both physically and emotionally. “With the death of her father, Antonia is forced to work on the family farm for her family to survive, and this shift in her role sparks a change in her identity. Antonia now wears some of her father’s belongings to suggest that she has indeed moved into a role that her father was supposed to play” (Everton). Antonia’s brother, Ambroch, makes use of her abilities as much as he can. When she works out on the fields he profits from the cash that she earns because he is the man of the household. “Antonia worked as a hired girl at the Cutters, and she was worried about Cutter’s intentions towards her. The moneylender, Wick Cuter, was known in Black Hawk as stingy towards his customers and over friendly to young girls . . . . Wick’s wife needed to go to Omaha for the weekend, and as a result of Wick’s infidelity she forced him to go with her. Although it seemed that Wick had left with his wife, Antonia still feared his intentions and pleaded with Jim to stay the night at the Cutters in her place . . . during the

The book ends with Jim reflecting on his life, realizing that many of the people he loved are now dead or have moved away from his small Nebraska home, but that he still longs for the prairie. He remembers the first time he saw Ántonia and her family, the scared, brave immigrants on the train with him trying to make a better life for themselves. He feels that Ántonia has fulfilled her goals and reached happiness, but that all he has tried to accomplish in life has left him feeling empyt and unhappy. Jim vows to return to the place he was his happiest, the place Ántonia and he grew up, the place where Ántonia

Jim’s memories and feelings of Ántonia make up a majority of the novel. He admires her in such a way that his memories of her have been burned

Antonia is seen as a cheerful and ecstatic girl who loves to be around people, as she is also a reason that the landscape relates to the characters in the novel. “As Antonia said, the whole world was changed by the snow. (33)” When Jim leaves for New York, Antonia changes and becomes a different person, reflecting herself as the changes in season and how people

Cather’s work, My Antonia, is a memoir told from Jim Burden’s perspective, as he recollects his youth moving from Virginia to life on the plains of Black Hawk, Nebraska. Upon moving in with his grandparents, Jim begins to admire Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant who moved to Black Hawk alongside the rest of her family, the Shimerdas. As Jim spends more time in Black Hawk, he bears witness to the many hardships which the Shimerdas faced, such as their limited proficiency with English, their horrible financial situation, and the death of the father, Mr. Shimerda. Later in the novel, Jim moves into town to further his education, while Antonia moves into town to find work. In town, Jim finds more hard-working immigrants, known as the “Hired

Willa Cather’s My Antonia is the story of a lifelong friendship that began between Jim and Antonia, two people who became friends when they were young and lived on the Nebraska prairie. Jim and Antonia encountered a large rattlesnake and a startled and, rather than yell out in English, Antonia speaks in her native Bohemian language. Antonia’s father, depressed and sad over missing his homeland, committed suicide and left the family to fend for themselves in a strange country. Jim’s grandparents decide that they are too old to run a ranch daily so they move to the closest town, Black Hawk.

Throughout My Antonia, the difference between immigrants and native lifestyles are shown. While neither Jim not Antonia is rich, Jim is definitely more well off than her. He knows the language and has enough that he can have more opportunities. Antonia realizes that her life is going to be more difficult and that she will have to work more because of her mother’s decision to move to America. She tells Jim that “if I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us,” (90) and knows that her gentle personality might be at stake. This also foreshadows future events where Antonia struggles as an immigrant farmer. It adds obstacles to her life which might lead to them drifting apart in their friendship, even complete separation. This relates to the world in how immigrants had a harder time getting going in life. Antonia’s mother has already become changed because of poverty. She is grasping, selfish, and believes everyone should help her family. Jim’s grandmother defends her, knowing that, “a body never knows what traits poverty might bring out in them,” (60), though it is socially unacceptable. The pressures of helping her family led Antonia to not be educated and become a farmer. She is happy, but this leads to Jim being away, “twenty years before I kept my promise,” (211) as he is a successful lawyer and travels. They still have old connections, though being from Bohemia did change Antonia’s life and where it could have gone.

But Ántonia did not feel the same way as Jim did. They soon go their separate ways, Jim started to works super hard in his studies and ends up going to Harvard to finish his law studies. Jim returned to Black Hawk after some time and realized that Ántonia had become pregnant and moved off to Denver were the father of the child lived. The father of the child soon deserted Ántonia and left her broke with nothing. Jim searched hard for Ántonia and wanted to know what has happened since they last saw each other.

Musing on his adolescent years, he reminisces; “What was there for me to do after supper? Usually I had learned next day’s lessons by the time I left the school building, and I could n’t sit still and read forever. In the evening I used to prowl about, hunting for diversion”, and “One could hang about the drug-store, and listen to the old men who sat there every evening, talking politics and telling raw stories. One could go to the cigar factory and chat with the old German who raised canaries for sale, and look at his stuffed birds” (105, 106) Jim’s socioeconomic status created a singular expectation of him; furthering his education, a task naturally simple for him, allowing him nearly limitless free time to wander the town, witnessing everything around

Jim’s relationship with Antonia shapes him as a character and provides him with the tools to grow from a child to a young adult.