My Antonia Religious Differences

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

Naturalism is an ongoing literary movement that has been apparent since the 1900’s. It depicts how the environment, social conditions, and even hereditary characteristics influence and shape the way a human character will develop. It is believed that there is no escaping this realism, and each situation one experiences is what will establish the route of life that they will partake. A short story called “My Antonia”, written by Willa Cather is merely categorized with Realism and Naturalism, though it is evident that several aspects portray supernatural occurrences. The specific characters throughout these excerpts show the reflection of Naturalism by experiencing struggles of deprivation which resulted in their lives being shaped by

In the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather is a book based upon the main characters memories. Many critics have criticized this novel, and have focused on such literary elements as setting,theme, tone and etc. However the strongest argument is the one that states that the foundation of every element in the book is based on the personal memories of Willa Cather. After researching Willa Cather you can discover many biographies that talk about her life. In many instances I found stories about her life that I found similar to Jim and Antonias. Since she used personal experiences and turned them into a story it adds a special touch to her writing.

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

The novel My Antonia uses imagery and figurative language to help communicate the theme of the novel to the readers. The character Jim Burden is headed west to Nebraska to his grandparents from Virginia after his parents have died. Jim is playing the role of Manifest Destiny by moving West to Nebraska. On his way Jim sees how raw the earth is, relating that it is not yet a country, but rather the material that countries are made of. Looking at the land this way is very much like Manifest Destiny. The author uses imagery many times throughout her novel to give the readers a better understanding and view to pinpoint the theme.

Americans were unsettled by the overwhelming amount of new immigrants. The new immigrants came in such massive quantities that in 1900 immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe made up as much as 70 percent of all immigrants. This is a dramatic increase considering that in midcentury these immigrants only made up 1 percent of the immigrant population. This overhaul of new immigrants led to severe hostility, bias, and nativism. Nativism is the belief that native-born white Americans were superior to newcomers. Competition for jobs and housing had never been higher in the late 19th century. America was in an economic recession and most immigrants were willing to work for much lower wages than natural born citizens which as a result put them out of work and ultimately housing. This however was only one problem, religion was another. American Protestants were suspicious of Catholicism which was the religion of many new immigrants including the Irish, German, Italian, and Polish. The majority of white Protestants would not hire, vote for, or even work with Catholics or Jewish people. In severe cases Americans would even sign contracts agreeing not to

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

Gender roles are the roles that men and women are expected to occupy based on their sex. Traditionally, many Western societies have believed that women are more nurturing then men . . . . One way that a woman might engage in the traditional feminine gender role would be to nurture her family by working full-time within the home rather than taking employment outside of the home. (Blackstone)

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 .

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

Dante Alighieri, on the other hand, takes separating the supernatural world from the physical world to great lengths. Simply the setting of the book in a place which does not physically exist anywhere on earth, but solely in a metaphysical plane, makes the reader aware that purgatory has nothing to do with earth. This differs greatly from the viewpoint of the Greeks and consequently the Romans where the gods resided in actual places the can be seen such as the `Milky Way' (Ovid, 6) or Olympus (Ovid, 7). Dante stresses that he and Virgil are `pilgrims' in Purgatory - their being in

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.

     Recognition of nation-construction effects our reading of the play of gender in the text. One such instance is in the case of narrative authority, which has frequently been cited as Jim's patriarchal subsuming of Antonia, as we have seen. While Jim appends the "my" to his

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.

Whatever a religion may offer as it's belief about suicide, the followers of that religion do not always uphold that belief. At Masada, for example, a sect of fervently religious Jews known as Zealots held off Roman invaders for two years. When it became apparent that defeat was inevitable, their leader convinced the remaining nine hundred and sixty of them to commit suicide (Flanders 5). And Michel de Montaigne, a Christian writer living in France in the mid sixteenth century wrote five essays arguing that suicide is a matter of personal choice, and it is a viable option under some circumstances (OCRT 1).