Jim Burden's Assimilation Into American Culture

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

Throughout the novel especially in the beginning it focuses a lot on the relationship between Antonia and Jim. While Jim does her a great deal by helping her learn English, it turns out that he really isn’t the one who’s learning the most from the relationship. It turns out that as these two kids grow up together through the book that Jim learns a lot more. Antonia without even trying ends up teaching Jim a lot about life and makes him reevaluate some of his previous opinions.

Antonia, despite having an enormous warmth about her, is too simpleminded and preoccupied with manual labor in order to have time to reflect on the meaning of happiness; nevertheless, she is always dissolved in the moment which allows her to unconsciously live by Jim's definition of happiness. She often finds herself completely submerged in her joys which predominantly come in form of her work, personal freedoms, and family. She said once, "'I belong on a farm. I'm never lonesome here like I used to be in town... And I don't mind work a bit if I don't have to put up with sadness'"(Book 5, Section1). Here it is evident that her work on the farm allows Antonia to forget her troubles and keep her from being lost in her negative thoughts. She was also found bragging to Jim about the

In My Antonia, a classic coming of age novel, Jim is the main character. Jim is very accepting, intelligent, and strong. His good natured personality is a constant throughout the novel, making it an enjoyable tale. Jim used his tragic past to become a wonderful role model.

My Ántonia is a novel written by Author Willa Cather. Throughout the development of the novel there are two characters that have a predominant push and pull relationship, Jim Burden and Ántonia Shimerda. The question is never really answered concerning their relationship and as to weather he is in love with her, or if they are just friends. The story specifically focused on Ántonia and what she meant to Jim. Although at the end of the novel we come to find that Jims feeling for her appearances do not matter. Jim sees people for who they are as a person. Jim has always enjoyed people and has had a particular interest in who they are morally. That is how resolves Ántonia at the end of the novel, despite his conflicted emotions and her weathered appearance. It was almost a spiritual assessment of Ántonia and his morale feelings for her and who she is. In the end who a person is in there “true inner self” is more important to Jim than visual appearance. My Ántonia gives you that message by how Jim sees the world and the people in it specifically Ántonia.

As time passes by, society changes but the land man lives on never does. In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Cather describes the Nebraska landscape to convey her attitude toward each character and to introduce and support the novels overall theme. As the novel progresses, Cather constantly explains the theme of man’s relationship with land and as the overall theme of this novel. Throughout the course of this story, Cather’s language institutes an unthought of deeper meaning to this account and clearly identifies relationship between man and the land they live on as the main theme.

The central narrative of My Antonia could be a check upon the interests, and tho' in his fib Jim seldom says something directly concerning the concept of the past, the general tone of the novel is very unhappy. Jim’s motive for writing his story is to do to change some association between his gift as a high-powered any professional person and his nonexistent past on the NE grassland ; in re-creating that past, the novel represent each Jim’s retention and his feelings concerning his recollections. in addition, inside the narrative itself, persona usually look rachis yearningly toward the past that they need losing, particularly when Book I. Life in blackness Hawk, Jim and Ántonia recall their Day on the farm Lena appearance back toward her spirit together with her family; the Shimerdas and therefore the Russian mirror on their lives in their several home countries before they immigrated to the United Country .

Friendship is a gift that is given at life, but what we make of it and how we take care of it is all up to us. Friends are like flashlights in dark rooms and, bandaids on a bad bruise, they make the hard times in life easier to handle and get through. The novel My Antonia shows a prominent theme of friendship between a young country boy named Jim, and a shy Bohemian immigrant named Antonia. Jim and his family provide care and friendship to Antonia's family in order to make survival easier for them through hard times. The survival and wellbeing of an immigrant family in the mid to late 1800’s depended on the connection with neighbors and this can explicitly be seen through the intimacy between Antonia, and Jim and both their families. Despite

Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda form a special connection/friendship and they both learn from one another as they are essentially opposites. Jim Burden is very materialistic in how he views the world. An example of this is how he thinks that the women of Black Hawk are not deserving of marriage, but instead just intimate relations. His views seemingly changed as he was previously condemning this attitude. He changes because he was very easily discouraged, when learning that the world works differently than he had imagined. Antonia Shimerda is a free spirited person who believes that are many ways to go about bringing success into one’s life, whereas Jim and others, believe there is one rigid path that must be followed. A quote that captures Antonia’s beliefs is; “That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.” However, her base convictions stay consistent throughout the entirety of the story.

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.

This dialogue Ántonia says to Jim brings upon a huge change in his character. Until now, Ántonia has always treated Jim in a patronizing manner, which is based purely on age. He tries not to acknowledge or believe that he is inferior, and tirelessly tries to prove to her and consequently himself that he is her equal. However, now that he has demonstrated his strength and valor in a time of peril, she thinks of him highly rather than looking down upon him condescendingly. Jim “longed for this opportunity”, and now that he receives it, he feels pleased about this incident with the snake and “hails it with joy”, instead of feeling quite the contrary which is typical in such situations (Cather 35). Therefore, this leads him to gain some of the past self-esteem he has lost in the previous months, leading him to his development in such character. From this point on in the novel, Jim has more confidence and carries himself with pride, all due to how he overcomes one of his deepest internal struggles with himself. Although this incident is a time of great danger to his life, it further develops him into a mature young man and “a big fellow” (Cather 37).

In a world where technological, political and social advancements are constantly being made, people may feel confused or out of place. However, this is precisely how Jim and Ántonia must have felt after moving to Nebraska. Jim, who was from Virginia, had never experienced life in the midwest. Similarly, Ántonia was a Bohemian immigrant and was not aquatinted with life in the western world. Although My Ántonia contains many positive messages, the novel also has many flaws.

In the book “My Àntonia” by Willa Cather, it tells a historical fiction novel about what life was like during the mid to late 1900’s. In “My Àntonia” there are three main characters: Jim Burden, Àntonia Shimerda, and Lena Lingard. The novel is in Jim’s perspective, meaning the book is written in first person and Jim is the narrator. In the novel Jim is emotionally connected to Nebraska, this is due to his grandparents moving him there after his parents died; when he was young. Jim is very close to Antonia, and refers to her throughout the book as My Antonia (Cather).

Since they met for the first time, they both had a crush on each other. Jim begins the novel with a fairly naïve view of immigrants. In response to the hardship faced by Antonia’s family, he tells her, "People who don't like this country ought to stay at home.

My Antonia is a philosophical story, with dream-like ideas left and right. Even so, the book’s main theme was clearly the transition or journey from childhood to adulthood. This theme applied to both the main characters, Jim and Antonia, who were children when the story begins and adults when it ends. At ten years old, Jim Burden moved to the plains of Black Hawk, Nebraska. His parents had died in an epidemic, and Jim was sent to live with his father’s parents on their Nebraska farm. In his new home, he met a Bohemian girl named Antonia, a free-spirited, lively, unique personality. He fell in love with her, and although his feelings were not returned, he and Antonia became great friends. The book has numerous examples of traditional obstacles that people their ages go through, along with additional hardships such as poverty and death of close family members. Antonia developed a sense of independence that became her most prominent trait throughout the book. The characters found activities and places where they felt like they belonged, and they began to discover who they were. As Jim (the narrator) states, “The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again.” Jim was speaking of a place