My Antonia Essay: Importance of Setting

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 there are two types of women, those who want to have a man and those who don¹t. The key word is want, at no point does a woman need a man in the entire course of the novel. From the Hired Girls to Tiny Soderball and Lena Lingard women are capable of self sufficiency and happiness. The majority of the truly contented people are either alone or living without the opposite sex. Antonia and Cuzak are the only example of a ³normal² happy couple, all others have some problems that prevent a normal relationship.

In my writing assignment I chose two of the essay questions about the novel “My Antonia” by Willa Cather. I chose question number three and question number four to write my essay. And question number three the author uses symbols from nature to express essential aspects of the lives of the characters. I chose three symbols and discussed how they convey information about the daily lives of the characters, and how the characters relate to each other and how the author views life. The fourth question that I chose to write about is how the author admires the character, Antonia. I wrote about the three characteristics that the author admires and added quotes from the book and also the reading about the author.

One of the worst hardships faced by not only women, but all homesteaders was winter. Winters were hard in the West and challenged farmers; crops were frozen and cattle herds were decimated. Homesteaders tried their best to prepare for the harsh winter but like Bess Cobb, many were afraid it would “be [there] before [they were] ready for it.” Even though there was preparation, there was still the fear that it wasn’t enough and that half of what the women planned to do did not get done. The cold that “crept in through the thin walls,”

Antonia was admired for her great strength and integrity that gave her the determination never to give up. Antonia suffered many hardships in her life but remained free spirited through all her struggles. Most people would have giving up but she made the best of her circumstances.

Willa Cather and Mary Austin are quite similar in respect to describing scenery; however, the purpose behind the imagery is different for each author, which produces a subtle contrast between them. Cather sets up My Antonia through her main character, Jim, an insightful introvert whose mind is constantly in wandering thought. She foreshadows, expresses, and reveals emotions through the utilization of imagery of the landscape. The descriptions help the reader understand and follow the story better. For example, when Jim’s father’s friend committed suicide, Cather illustrated a rugged, almost dangerous scenery to point out the sudden peril about to enter the scene. On the other hand, Austin epitomizes the Death Valley and its corresponding desert

When Jim Burden initially reaches Nebraska, his descriptions of nature help the reader understand not only his personal experiences, but also the Romanticism prevalent in the book, My Antonia. This sets the reader up for the struggle and conflict between Modernism and Romanticism in the book, which is a major theme that Willa Cather utilizes in her novel. However, there is more to this Romantic description that meets the eye. On pages 12 and 13, Jim describes looking at the land while he travels to his grandparents, a passage which evokes beauty and hints towards philosophical meaning. Through this passage in the first chapter, it becomes clear that Jim’s narration of the nature around him works to highlight the idea that the land is a heaven that is untouched. Like young Jim, the land is in a “blank slate,” which intertwines the land and Jim together. This is furthered through the progression of the land and Jim, as they progress into godlike beings. Through this progression and balance, the balance between Modernism and Romanticism is achieved, and the reader better understands the intentions of Cather, thus leading to a better understanding of the text as a whole.

The Sacrifices of Immigrant American’s Dreams Sacrificing is the hardest thing to do to achieve the American dream. My Antonia by Willa Cather is about an immigrant girl named Antonia, seeks adventures of living in Nebraska with her family. Cather wrote stories from other immigrant families who are living in Nebraska. The novel offers numerous elements of the hard working foreigner pioneers in the prairies, especially the hardships endured by women.

I. We discover the Great Plains and Ántonia through the eyes of Jim, and he perceives both as strange, exotic, and mysterious when he first experiences them. On a wagon ride during his first night in Nebraska, approaching his new home, Jim notes, "I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it and were outside man's jurisdiction" (Cather 36). That same night, Jim meets Ántonia and her family for the first time and comments, "I pricked up my ears, for it was positive the first time I had ever heard a foreign tongue" (Cather 36). In the Nebraska night, Jim experiences both the land and Ántonia as unfamiliar, unknown, foreign, and exotic.

In this novel, there are multiple themes laced through the text. Some noticeable at first read, while others are quite difficult to comprehend. One of the many themes in My Ántonia is nostalgia. The characters all seem to have a personal connection to the past. It's as if this connection triggers memories and emotions the characters felt while they were in that position. Connection to the environment is also another theme, but it is less nostalgic. These characters not only miss the memories and emotions, but they miss the surroundings. This theme is more symbolic as the environment is reflecting the character’s personality or emotion. For example, Jim, one of the main characters,

   In her novel, My Antonia, Cather represents the frontier as a new nation. Blanche Gelfant notes that Cather "creat[ed] images of strong and resourceful women upon whom the fate of a new country depended" . This responsibility, along with the "economic productivity" Gilbert and Gubar cite (173), reinforces the sense that women hold a different place in this frontier community than they would in the more settled areas of America.

In the book, My Antonia there was a group of women that came from a different country, to experience a new life. In the late 1800s women were objectified to work indoors. In this case both women Antonia and Lena came to America to find that "American Dream," but the Anti-feminist society in Black Hawk town did not let them out of their grasp.

My Antonia is a novel published in 1918 by Willa Cather. This novel tells the story of Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant in Nebraska in the late 1800s. Although My Antonia is fictional, it is based on Willa Cather’s youth in Nebraska. As Jim Burden did in the book, Willa Cather moved from Virginia to Nebraska as a child to live with her grandparents. The town of Black Hawk symbolized Red Cloud in Cather’s youth. Willa Cather also attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Cather used references to nature and weather in the novel’s plot. By analyzing several references to nature and weather, I understood at a deeper level the novel and the purpose of nature and weather in the novel. After rereading the following passage that referred to nature or weather:

One way that Cather symbolizes nature is through the landscape. It is seemingly the largest and most obvious symbol in the story. It is one of the best parts of the book in my opinion. It shows there is a larger idea of our environment, it shows that there’s more than just what we see when it comes to things around us. It’s a place we live in, we work in, we raise families in, we have some of the best and worst times in. It comes to show that Jim’s relationship is very important on its own, but it also brings to the front his relationship with the people and cultures of where he lives. The landscape mirrors Jim’s feelings, there are points when it looks desolate when he is lonely or upset. He also looks back through the landscapes of his childhood.