My Antonia

In the following quotes from early on in the novel, figurative language exalts the prairie and expresses happiness as a merger into nature. In the first quote, from early in the novel, Jim...

When the reader first meets Antonia, she is a young girl. She is full of hope and plans for the future. She wants to learn English, she wants to go to school. After her father dies, however, she...

Although both Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda are new to Nebraska (they arrive at the same time), Jim is an American who has to leave Virginia after his parents' deaths to live with his...

The subject of displacement is explored in the book My Antonia through the experiences of immigrants. Antonia and her family have been displaced, both culturally and geographically, by their...

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...

In Black Hawk, the "hired girls" are all daughters of immigrant farmers; they are country girls, as opposed to the town girls in Black Hawk. These hired girls work to help their families pay off...

In the town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, a firm social class distinction separated the town girls, those whose parents were born in America, from the hired girls, those whose parents were immigrants....

Willa Cather’s My Antonia is a story set in the American Midwest near the turn of the twentieth century. Readers of this novel can relate Antonia Shimerda’s journey to that of Cather’s since the...

As the narrator, Jim Burden, so acutely observes, "it was homesickness that killed Mr. Shimerda" (Chapter XIV). In the old country, Mr. Shimerda was a weaver and a musician. He was happy...

Ántonia's father, Mr. Shimerda, commits suicide by going into the family's barn and putting the barrel of his shotgun in his mouth. He uses his big toe to pull the trigger. His despair and...

It seems to me that in the novel, winter symbolizes the hardship and suffering Antonia's family survives. However, when spring and summer arrive, new life comes to everyone, but especially to...

In Willa Cather's novel My Antonia, the story is told from Jim Burden's point of view. While Jim may be considered nostalgic (and is even told by Francis that he is a romantic), he holds a special...

In the novel, Antonia is important to Jim because she is the personification of all the things that he holds dear. In his mind, she is a connection to his new home in Nebraska and his early teen...

The prairie is as much a character in Cather’s book as Jim or Antonia herself. Like Antonia, for example, the land around Black Hawk also grows and develops over the course of the book, starting...

There are several key differences between the two main families featured in My Ántonia. The Burdens are the family of Jim Burden, the orphaned boy who's the novel's narrator and protagonist, while...

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...

Willa Cather’s 1918 novel, My Antonia, is a perfect example of literary regionalism. The Nebraskan landscape directly contributes to the emotional growth (or decline, in some cases) and the...

In My Ántonia, Jim is the narrator whose voice offers a romantic vision of bygone lifeways on the Midwestern prairie. Although Jim was born in the East, after his parents’ death he moved to...

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...

Antonia approaches the prospect of raising her child by herself with an attitude of strength and determination. Mrs. Stevens says about Antonia, "Antonia's got on fine. She'd loved (the baby) from...

All three find their own measure of "success," although each must undergo hardship before they can attain it. You are right to qualify the term "success" with "by their own standards," since...

For Antonia, life is a constant battle of being caught between the happiness and optimism that comes naturally to her and the unfortunate circumstances that seem to follow her through life. For...

Mr. Shimerda never fully settles down in America. In fact, he never even wanted to come over in the first place. His inability to speak English is just one of many reasons why he doesn't fit in to...

In My Antonia, one myth that Willa Cather challenges concerns women and work. As historians have shown, a male-centric narrative about America and the West has developed. The presumption is that...

One key incident that showed Antonia’s strength of character and determination to succeed on her own terms was her failed engagement to Larry Donovan. Antonia had enjoyed some relatively carefree...

Jim asks Ántonia if she would like to go to school for the next semester. Ántonia refuses, saying that she is kept too busy by farm work: Ántonia stood up, lifting and dropping her shoulders as if...

Although Jim and Antonia arrive in Black Hawk at the same time, their situations are entirely different. Jim has been sent to Nebraska to live with his paternal grandparents because his parents...

Jim was ten when he came to live with his grandparents on the prairie. Three years later, when he turned thirteen, his grandparents decided to move away from the farm to the nearby city of Black...

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...

Antonia makes this statement to Jim when he relays the suggestion made by his grandmother that Antonia attend the term of school that is to begin in a week. Antonia, who has been doing brutally...

Mrs. Shimerda resents the Burdens at times because they are well-off enough to live comfortably, and she and her family have nothing. As Grandmother kindly explains to Jim, "a body never knows...

I think the fact that Antonia speaks her native language simply supports the theme that through all of her experiences, good and bad, joyful and devastating, that she has remained the person she...

The initial impression I get from the incident with the rattlesnake is that Jim has now really gone up in Ántonia’s estimation. Previously, she’s acted superior towards him on account of their age...

One of the first things that struck me about the novel, My Ántonia, by Willa Cather, was the author's impressive use of imagery woven throughout the story. This answer deals with Chapter Two. One...

Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda arrive in Black Hawk, Nebraska at the same time, but their situations are different in a number of ways. First of all, compared to Antonia, Jim has come a relatively...

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...

In the novel, "My Antonia" by Willa Cather Antonia is the model of a successful pioneer woman because she is a survivor. She is an immigrant that has been moved to a new country. This takes...

Mr. Harling is a man with a keen eye for business who openly disapproves of Antonia's carousals at the town dances. Jim describes him as "autocratic and imperial" and finds his shadow which is...

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....

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...

Both Jim and Antonia are immigrants in a sense, though while Antonia has crossed continents and oceans to arrive in America, Jim is an immigrant from the South and is therefore moving to a...

The crossroads where Mr. Shimerda is buried can be understood as a metaphor for both Antonia's and Jim's futures. Both spend time as children on the prairie in the early years when a single stake...

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...

An author of a novel is not necessarily the narrator of that novel. In this case, the author of My Ántonia, Willa Cather, is different from the narrator, who is a fictional character named Jim...

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...

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...