My Antonia Stereotypes

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

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.

Each of the women face hardships with family, life in general, and men. Antonia a young, Bohemian girl is faced with many challenges and hardships throughout her life. After the death of her father, Antonia is obliged to start living by working in the fields alongside the men. Every member in her family depends on her both physically and emotionally. “With the death of her father, Antonia is forced to work on the family farm for her family to survive, and this shift in her role sparks a change in her identity. Antonia now wears some of her father’s belongings to suggest that she has indeed moved into a role that her father was supposed to play” (Everton). Antonia’s brother, Ambroch, makes use of her abilities as much as he can. When she works out on the fields he profits from the cash that she earns because he is the man of the household. “Antonia worked as a hired girl at the Cutters, and she was worried about Cutter’s intentions towards her. The moneylender, Wick Cuter, was known in Black Hawk as stingy towards his customers and over friendly to young girls . . . . Wick’s wife needed to go to Omaha for the weekend, and as a result of Wick’s infidelity she forced him to go with her. Although it seemed that Wick had left with his wife, Antonia still feared his intentions and pleaded with Jim to stay the night at the Cutters in her place . . . during the

My Ántonia takes place in a time in which gender roles were more enforced and more commonplace than they are today. Women were expected to take care of the children and the home, while men were expected to earn money and work the fields. Even though these roles were such a prominent aspect of the era, many characters worked against them. Willa Cather portrays these characters in a positive light because of their deviations from gender roles rather than despite them.

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.

Willa Cather draws a stark contrast between the respectable women of Black Hawk and the “hired girls” in books II and III of My Antonia through Jim’s unavoidable attachment to them.  The “hired girls” are all immigrants who work in Black Hawk as servants to help support their families in the country.  They are hardworking and charming.  They are simple and complicated.  They are sad and joyful.  They work all day and dance all night.  For Jim they are the most interesting people who  reside in Black Hawk.  The respectable women are boring and predictable.  They all go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning.  Their

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.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s story, Girl, a mother is talking to her daughter about all the proper things she must do to be considered a good girl to her family and to the public, and when she grows up, a proper lady. She must follow the rules that are given to her by her own mother and by society. The mother also teaches the daughter how to act when things don’t go her way. She is told that along with being a proper lady, she must also be able to get what she wants and be independent. This story was written in the late 1970’s and gender roles, for women, back then were not being “followed” because women wanted equal opportunities (Women In the Workforce). “Gender stereotypes are beliefs regarding the traits and behavioral characteristics given to individuals on the basis of their gender” (Deuhr). This essay will discuss the gender roles that were given to women in the story, during the late 70’s, and in today’s society.

Throughout the history, in all cultures the roles of males and females are different. Relating to the piece of literature “Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid for the time, when women’s roles were to work in the home. By examining

     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” includes the theme of stereotypes most clearly in the way immigrants are viewed, as well as the view of women. Immigrants are generally stereotyped as clueless and uneducated, viewed as almost a nuisance to society. In some ways, Willa Cather displays this in the Shimerdas, a family who is cheated of their money and struggles to survive. Women are stereotyped as homemakers and men as workers. However, society shows a defiance, and many characters show a defiance to the stereotype that women are meant to work in the home, and that women simply want society’s approval. Stereotypes are also expressed in who society views as successful, as well as many other ways. The clearest stereotypes are those of foreigners as clueless. The

     At the same time, the readings of the women's masculinity and androgyny must be similarly reconsidered. While Irving reads Lena as one who "conforms more readily than Ántonia" and assimilates in a manner "too complete" in that "she, like Jim, is lethargic" (100), I would argue that Lena's refusal to marry and her achievement of the independent, successful life she sought belie any ready categorization of reinforced hegemony, undermining standard patriarchal demands; and her success can be contrasted with Jim's loveless marriage and the vague reference to the "disappointments" that have failed to quell his "naturally romantic and ardent disposition" (4). Similarly, as Gilbert and Gubar highlight, the happiness of the "masculine" hired girls stands in stark contrast with the emotional restriction to which town wives are subjected: "Energetic and jolly, Mrs. Harling must stop all the activities of her household so as to devote herself entirely to her husband" (197). While it may be true that "their disturbing androgynous qualities, and their unwillingness to accept traditional female roles" position the hired girls as "outsiders" (Wussow 52) and that these facts can be read as critical of the feminine, it seems more

Throughout many pays and novels, women have had important roles of helping form the main characters, in the way they think, move or change the story. Women have always been subordinate to men all through history, but in plays, novels, short stories, etc, they have been given large enforcing roles, showing the power within women. William Shakespeare and Sophocles use guilt, pride, and influence to demonstrate the importance of the women’s role to support the main characters in both the plays of Macbeth and Antigone.

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.

American Literature has always been about men and for men. In this essay, we are going to analyze the women’s role in the book, as inferior and weaker gender.