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My Antonia
Part of the power of Cather’s novel is her acknowledgement that the immigrant experience could be a harsh one. Mr Shimerda’s suicide is an example. Antonia’s father is profoundly unhappy in...
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My Antonia
Cather’s novel is the story of Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant to Nebraska, and her friendship with Jim Burden, an orphan who travels to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. The novel...
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My Antonia
The quote appears in Book IV, Chapter IV. In this chapter Jim and Antonia are reunited. So much has happened to each of them: Jim has attended law school, and Antonia has been jilted by her fiance...
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My Antonia
Mr Shimerda wants Jim to teach Antonia to speak English. The passage is in Book I, Chapter 3: We went with Mr. Shimerda back to the dugout, where grandmother was waiting for me. Before I got into...
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My Antonia
As you work on your assignment to create a high school graduation speech writing in the voice of Jim Burden, the narrator of Willa Cather's My Antonia, you should try to demonstrate how he has...
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My Antonia
Realism can be a hard term to pin down. In a conventional sense, Cather can be considered a "realist" in that her fiction tries to convey life as it is lived, as honestly and accurately as...
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My Antonia
One important difference between Jim and Antonia is, of course, that Jim is a member of an established and properous Anglo Protestant family, while Antonia's family are Catholic immigrants from...
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My Antonia
This is a really wonderful assignment of comparison and will lend itself well to a comparison and contrast essay. Let's look at the salesmen first from Sister Carrie and then from My Antonia as...
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My Antonia
It is a curious characteristic of many who have lived and, especially, farmed in the prairie states and the plains states that, while to the casual observer of these areas there is little beauty in...
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My Antonia
British novelist W. Somerset Maugham wrote, It is very difficult to know people. For, men and women are not only themselves, they are also the region in which they are born....You can know them...
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My Antonia
The rest of the passages surrounding these quotes serves to give them some context and provide a better explanation. For example, regarding the weather, it is suggested that this is similar to how...
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My Antonia
The nature of the relationship between Jim and Antonia reflects idealism and transcendence can exist in the interactions between human beings. While time changes both Jim and Antonia, there is...
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My Antonia
Cather is unapologetic in how she sees immigrants as vital fibers of the tapestry that defines America. In her depiction of Antonia, Cather is able to extol the virtues of immigrants. She is able...
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My Antonia
Although Willa Cather has transmuted her own history into a romantic story of significance, it is certainly fashioned in a realistic style. It does not tell of the fulfillment of the American Dream...
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My Antonia
Jim Burden's full name is James Quayle Burden. He is the narrator of the novel My Antonia. He tells the story of Antonia Shimerda in the form of a memoir. They lived on neighboring farms in...
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My Antonia
The introduction of Willa Cather's My Antonia tells of the narrator's visit with Jim Burden over the summer of the previous year. The narrator (Cather) goes on to state that meetings with Jim are...
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My Antonia
"Stand tall" is an English language idiom that means to carry oneself with pride and dignity and to show confidence in one's deportment. Antonia stood tall in the face of adversity from the very...
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My Antonia
What Laura Ingalls Wilder did for the white, Anglo pioneers of America in the 1800’s, it might be argued Willa Cather did for American immigrant pioneers. Wilder, of course, documented in a...
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My Antonia
As the title of Book IV suggests, this section of the book is all about the different fates of the three pioneer women explored in the novel: Lena, Tiny and Antonia. The three women have enjoyed...
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My Antonia
Jim Burden arrives at Black Hawk when his family is already entrenched because grandfather has a farm there. He is white, and speaks the language. Antonia’s family does not, and they are shy...
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My Antonia
An interesting contrast can be discerned by comparing these two novels. Catcher in the Rye treats childhood as a dangerous and unexplainable time, both for Holden Caulfield and the children...
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My Antonia
This powerful novel is rightfully famous for its excellent evocation of place. The sense of beauty and potential in the descriptions of the countryside capture the real sense of excitement and hope...
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My Antonia
The above quote indicates the very powerful magnetism that Antonia exerts on Jim, the narrator of this novel, throughout the story. Remember the title of this book and how it represents the way...
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My Antonia
It is important to realise the way in which this powerful novel represents a criticism of the American Dream, the impulse that brought so many immigrants from all over Europe to the West, like the...
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My Antonia
It is clear from this moving and lyrical novel that Antonia is a character who exerts a curious magnetism and fascination on the narrator. One of the most memorable descriptions about this...
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My Antonia
Antonia Shimerda's heroism resides in her ability, throughout the novel, to "keep on keeping on" as they say, despite a life journey through much happiness, including, but not limited to her lack...
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My Antonia
This quote is expressing Jim's reaction when he first encounters the wide open unsettled expanses surrounding his grandparents' farm. Coming from Virginia, the surroundings appear undeveloped, but...
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My Antonia
Jim and Antonia both arrive in Black Hawk on the same train, at night. The darkness of night has always been a symbol of the unknown, in this case, the completely changed lives awaiting both...
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My Antonia
The way that different characters react to the dancing pavilion reveals a lot about them. The hired girls (Antonia, Lena, etc) all enjoy dancing at the pavilion, while the town girls do not. The...
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My Antonia
I suppose the real reason for this is that there is no such thing as an objectively true account. Any first person narration, no matter how objective an author tries to make it, is bound to be...
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My Antonia
The fact is that any first person account in a story can be considered unreliable. This is because we are seeing the action through the eyes of one character. Any person, because of their own...
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My Antonia
The story makes it clear that Mr. Shimerda is very grateful to his son for his willingness to teach his daughter how to read, as is shown early on in the novel when he promises to make a gift of...
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My Antonia
Cather's use of simple langauge and a straightforward tone to present a realistic depiction of humanity is evident, for example, in the following passage: Before I could sit down in the chair she...
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My Antonia
Well spotted! This is an interesting fact about this excellent book concerning migration and the expansion of the border of the West in America, and is an issue that has troubled critics. The...
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My Antonia
The dedication to My Antonia reads: TO CARRIE AND IRENE MINER In memory of affections old and trueOptima dies... prima fugit VIRGIL Writers usually choose to dedicate books to people who have had...
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My Antonia
While Jim is in college, Latin teacher, Gaston Cleric becomes Jim's mentor. The two spend a great deal of time conversing and eventually, Jim follows Gaston to Harvard to complete his education....
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My Antonia
Let us remember that figurative language is a literary technique that is based on comparison. The most common examples are similes, metaphors and personification. Considering this excellent novel,...
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My Antonia
It had begun to grow dark when my household returned, and grandmother was so tired that she went at once to bed. Jake and I got supper, and while we were washing the dishes he told me in loud...
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My Antonia
Look at it from this perspective. Does anything the Shimerdas do in the book frustrate you?
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My Antonia
The way in which Antonia has held on to the "old ways" and the original pioneer spirit is made evident by the way she is described at the end of this excellent novel when the narrator visits her...
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My Antonia
In Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia, Jim Burden becomes an orphan when he is still a young boy living in Virginia. Sent by relatives, he travels by rail to Nebraska to live with his grandparents....
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My Antonia
Chapter 7 of the story My Antonia, by Willa Cather is meant to be quite allegorical. In a pastoral romance such as this, we tend to assume that all that happens will be prim, proper, innocent,...
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My Antonia
The tone of a work of literature is of course the attitude of the author towards a subject, character or theme. The overwhelming focus of this great pioneer work of American Literature is the...
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My Antonia
Two themes that seem to stand in the forefront of this work are THE AMERICAN DREAM and COMING OF AGE. The American Dream In the early 20th Century, immigrants flooded to the US to secure their...
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My Antonia
More than anything else what lingers on in the mind after reading this book is the intense, passionate and above all evocative way that the landscape of the frontier is described in this work and...
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My Antonia
Strength Early in her teen years, Antonia must develop a strong work ethic in order to make sure the family farm thrives after her father's suicide. She models this after he brother Ambroch. She...
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My Antonia
apex?
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My Antonia
When Ántonia takes a job with the Harlings, in Willa Cather's novel, My Antonia," there is some argument between Ambrosch Shimerda, Ántonia's brother, and Mrs. Harling. Mrs. Harling agrees to pay...
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My Antonia
Antonia learned a great deal about how a home could be kept clean and run efficiently during her time with the Harlings. More than likely, she was working for money to help her family, as that was...
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My Antonia
What I like the least and the most of Willa Cather's My Antonia, comes from the story itself, and from Cather' writing style. My immediate impression upon starting the novel was Cather's...