Mr. Shimerda's Suicide in Willa Cather's My Antonia Essay

many accounts of these migrations and stories of the untamed wilderness, but one of the classics is My Antonia by Willa Cather. Cather, an American migrant to the west herself, relates many of the experiences in her novel to the stories of her childhood. In a critical analysis of the work of Willa Cather written by James Woodress, published in Detroit, Michigan in the

connected to them. In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, a choice to end their life by their own hands causes the one person who is closest to the deceased to make decisions based on their choice. “Things would have been very different with poor Antonia if her father had lived” (Cather 76). In chapter fourteen of “The Shimerdas,” Antonia’s father, Mr. Shimerda, commits suicide. While Mr. Shimerda untimely death causes anguish to his family and friends, his death adversely affects Antonia the most. Things can

Literary pieces are frequently linked to historical trends to enhance and strengthen their rhetoric. Accordingly, this is the case of My Ántonia, a book written by the American novelist Willa Cather. Historical events can easily be associated with the book’s main theme by examining the religious aspects of the setting, the conflicts rooted in ethnic backgrounds due to nativist sentiments, and the freedom that the Midwest prairie presented for European immigrants. During the early 16th century, Protestantism

Theme of Separation in My Antonia   My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a book tracing the story of a young man, Jim Burden, and his relationship with a young woman, Antonia Shimerda. Jim narrates the entire story in first person, relating accounts and memories of his childhood with Antonia. He traces his journey to the Nebraska where he and Antonia meet and grow up. Jim looks back on all of his childhood scenes with Antonia with nearly heartbreaking nostalgia. My Antonia, is a book that makes

The American Dream in My Antonia, Neighbor Rosicky, and 0 Pioneers!       While many American immigrant narratives concentrate on the culture shock that awaits those who arrive from the more rural Old World to live in a city for the first time, Willa Cather's immigrants, often coming from urban European settings, face the vast and empty land of the plains. Guy Reynolds notes that "the massive outburst of America westwards was in part powered by the explosion of immigrants through the eastern

pioneers were expecting the land to work with them, but it was actually working against them. Winters were hard, and many pioneers gave up and left. The few who remained were proven to be strong and determined to force the land to cooperate. In Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and O Pioneers!, her purpose was to show readers that women could be strong pioneers, overcoming the adversity caused by the land, as seen