My Antonia Personal Narrative

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared an unconditional war on poverty in the United States and the most photographed area was the Appalachia region. Many of the photographs intentional or not, became a visual definition of the Appalachia region. The images have drawn from the poorest areas and people to gain support for the war on poverty, but came to represent the entirety of the region. The point of the Looking at Appalachia project is to explore the diversity of Appalachia and to establish a visual counter point. (Home - Looking at Appalachia.) The three images I am going to analyze are challenge some of the stereotypes put on the Appalachia region. I believe my images challenge the stereotype that all Appalachian people do is work hard, go to church, and don’t have time for anything besides those two things.

The setting of the story has tremendous impact on the characters and themes in the novel "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Cather's delicately crafted naturalistic style is evident not only in her colorfully detailed depictions of the Nebraska frontier, but also in her characters’ relationship with the land on which they live. The common naturalist theme of man being controlled by nature appears many times throughout the novel, particularly in the chapters containing the first winter.

      Lena Lingard is the best example of a non-domestic central character which appears amidst the domesticity of My Ántonia. Often the sections which feature Lena instead of Ántonia are seen as confusing divergences from the plot line of a novel that purports to be about the woman named in the title. However, since Lena appears in the novel almost as often as Ántonia, and more often than any other character except Jim, she is a central character. Lena is a working woman who refuses to accept the constraints society places upon her. Even when society predicts that by becoming a dressmaker instead of marrying she will fail and become a "loose" woman, she disrupts their expectations

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 .

“Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us (p. 111).” These words, spoken by Ántonia, the protagonist of the novel ‘My Ántonia’, give light to the situation immigrants found themselves in after moving to the North America’s Western frontier. This novel reveals how immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had to overcome numerous obstacles on the path towards ‘The American Dream’ which those native to the area did not have to face.

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.

In Uneven Ground, the author Ronald D. Eller narrates the economic, political, and social change of Appalachia after World War II. He writes “persistent unemployment and poverty set Appalachia off as a social and economic problem area long before social critic Michael Harrington drew attention to the region as part of the “other America” in 1962.”(pp.2) Some of the structural problems stated by Eller include problems of land abuse, political corruption, economic shortsightedness, and the loss of community and culture; personally view the economic myopia as being the most daunting.

Willa Cather’s My Antonia and Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain are two literary works that effectively recreate the landscape of the stories they are telling. Their writing styles have a few similar characteristics, such as their word choice and their usage of visual elements; however, they take advantage of various writing elements that make their writing styles distinct, such as the use of figurative language, emotion, and rhetorical questioning.

Daugneaux, Christine B. Appalachia: A Separate Place, A Unique People. Parsons: McLain Printing Company, 1981. Print.

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.

The people of Appalachia are often characterized as ignorant, lazy, uneducated, drug addicted, and incestuous. Many believe that this impoverished area is full of hicks, hillbillies, and rednecks, but when examining the truths one might find an enriched culture with generous people who are hardworking, artistic, and family oriented with a strong religious faith.

Why do many immigrants make the long and usually costly move to America? Is it the largely idolized notion that Americans are wealthier with better opportunities? Moreover, is the price some pay worth the risk? In Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, Ántonia faces struggles as a young child, including language barriers, poverty, harsh living conditions, and her beloved father’s death. However, as Ántonia grows into a woman, she must face struggles of a social nature, such as the division of social and economic classes, as well as social opprobrium. While immigration to America may open many doors for immigrants, it is equally fraught with obstacles. Likewise, Ántonia must face many adversities after her emigration from Bohemia to Nebraska, which

   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.

My Antonia was published in 1918, two years before all American women were granted the right to vote in 1920. Willa Cather lived in a bustling time where women were heavily vouching for fundamental rights and breaking free from what had been considered societal norms. While Cather mentions the conventional duties and housewives of the time the book was written, her story’s focus differs. “My Antonia’s,” narrative centers around women, many of whom are immigrants, who transcend the gender norms of their time on their journeys to create successful lives, much to Jim’s admiration.

world and does not care to return to it. At this point, the reader begins to pity Jim,