Stereotypes In My Antonia

Immigrants constantly face racial prejudices unknown to the privileged. These immigrants are only trying to have a life for themselves and/or for their children. My Antonia by Willa Cather entails the trials and tribulations of those who seek success told through the perspective of Jim Burden. The novel consists of people out of the country wanting a better life for themselves; That's what they want most of all. The immigrants that Jim comes to know go through hardships that they overcome to finally become successful in the end.

In chapter X of My Antonia, there is a conflict between Mrs. Harling and Antonia. Antonia is seen trying to find another job with another group of family because she was told by Mrs. Harling that she should stop going to dances. Antonia was furious about this and decided to leave this job in search for another. She states, “A girl like me has got to take her good times when she can. Maybe there won’t be any tent next year, I guess I want to have my fling, like the other girls.” This particular passage tells the reader that Antonia is searching for her own independence and she will do anything to seek it.

As time passes by, society changes but the land man lives on never does. In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Cather describes the Nebraska landscape to convey her attitude toward each character and to introduce and support the novels overall theme. As the novel progresses, Cather constantly explains the theme of man’s relationship with land and as the overall theme of this novel. Throughout the course of this story, Cather’s language institutes an unthought of deeper meaning to this account and clearly identifies relationship between man and the land they live on as the main theme.

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 My Antonia, Cather symbolizes feminism by using homes. What is a home? A home is a place where one lives permanently, especially a member of a family. A home is where everyone gathers and share ideas, beliefs, and it is a place where children are born. Therefore, it no surprise if a home is to be compared to a womb. Another great observation made in this book is that since the houses are isolated in the prairie, they show the loneliness side of women in keeping themselves together in a male-dominating region. Cather uses the size of a single house to show the rising roles of women.

Jane Elliot really put the manner in which social construction is formed in a simple yet understandable way, by creating such a hierarchy based on eye color the experiment was simple enough for children yet had so much of an impact that adults could take it seriously as well. All of the subjects got to take into consideration and use critical thinking to realize just how absurd judging someone for their skin color really was. Elliot would constantly point out the simple mistakes one eye color group would make, reinforcing that one eye color group was superior to the other. Thus creating a sort of ethnocentric classroom, such as “Oh Jimmies dad kicked him! Guess what eye color he had? Brown! A blue eyed father would never do that!” the children

RaStereotyping is a way of thinking about groups of people. It ignores the differences of the group, while emphasizing its similarity. One belief, that is a stereotype, is that red-haired people are hot tempered. Another belief is that Scottish people are stingy. Such thinking ignores many even-tempered redheads and generous Scottish people. Stereotyping emphasizes many differences between groups while ignoring their similarities to other people. It ignores that many blond and brown-haired people also lose their tempers. Stereotyping overlooks the fact that many American, Brazilians and French people are stingy.

Love is one of the most highly spoken of emotions in human culture; it is revered as holy, or viewed as manic and obsessed, depending on the situation and context of said love. And there are so many way to love. But there is still only one “romance,” personified as red and passionate, reinforced with strong feelings of affection. Well, there is only one human romance. Because you wouldn’t view hate as romance, would you? Some would beg to differ. These certain some have four different types of romance, kept in four quadrants, with the colors of red, pale, black, and ashen associated with them. These some are aliens, trolls, from a planet called Alternia, fictitious creatures from an epic written by Andrew Hussie. And the similarities and differences

Mr. Shimerda calls his daughter “my Ántonia”; Jim Burden – the narrator – also refers to her many times that way. Throughout the memoir, he shows us his time with Ántonia and his childhood with her, not just himself.

It symbolises progress and an evanescent past; the prairie is developed under it’s old windy roads replaced by straight ones; the tall planes of grass burned down to make room for farmland. As Jim gets older, the prairies he once knew symbolises his friendship with Ántonia as well as the nostalgia manifested upon his life as orphaned boy in Nebraska. Lena looks back on her life with her family; the Russians and the Shimerdas reflect back on their lives in their home countries before immigrating to America. Jim’s motive for writing his story is to try to recreate some connection between his present life as a New York lawyer and his childhood in the prairies of Nebraska. Characters of My Ántonia are seen to be yearning for the past that they’ve

The likely reference that Ms. Hinton intended is the fact that Greasers are social outcasts, usually ending up being rejected by society. Greasers receive blame for most problems, as a result, the people of a higher class are constantly attacking them. Some Greasers, such as Dally, fit the stereotypes that others have for them, but others, such as Johnny and Ponyboy, are nothing like the social stereotypes, as they are quite are quite equanimous. Hinton alluded that Greasers are outsiders whilst trying to avoid stating it outright, as this provokes more thought or interest in the novel.

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.

In the novel My Antonia author Willa Cather appealingly portrays characters that disregard stereotypical gender roles. Not only in the main characters, Antonia Shimerdas and Jim Burden, but also in many of the lesser characters presented in the novel. The relevance of these non stereotypical gender roles become apparent in the unfolding of the characters through Jim’s narration. This novel analyzes the changes in young women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries towards traditional roles. In this novel we can assume that women like to make their own choices, rather than to follow their expected roles. We see the typical gender role again when Antonia is surviving on her own while still being able to take care of her family. Her hard work and sincere concerns allow forgiveness of her masculinity at home.

Teachers are people of indescribable tenacity, intelligence, and inertia. They are constantly faced with trials, overcoming them, and learning a great deal of wisdom from these tribulations. It is the job of a teacher to learn from the student, to take the obstacles and challenges that student presents them with as an opportunity to learn themselves. This job is taken by Jim in My Antonia, as he uses the “burden” of Tony’s education, as a venue for his own exponential growth. When Jim is asked to “Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia” (Book I, Section III), he is in fact opting to teach himself about the values of sentimentalism. Antonia’s constant resistance to the world, others, and society initially challenge Jim, but he is able to reflect upon his journey, and see the value in the struggle of teaching.