two young people become great friends, but although Jim cares deeply for her, he has certain expectations of her and finds it difficult to look past her failure to live up to them. (We see this, eventually, when she gets pregnant.)

While both care for the other, they ultimately must pursue different paths: Antonia likes to go out with her friends and dance and have fun. Jim knows certain behaviors are expected of him by his family, and he does his best to adhere to their wishes. Where Antonia is hardworking, but life-loving, Jim is cautious and careful. He always opts for the safest path.

After high school, Jim goes to college and then law school, and Antonia works in town until she leaves to get married and comes home in disgrace.

By the time they come together again at the end of the novel, Jim and Ántonia are joined within their hearts like the grasses that are a permanent part of the Nebraskan landscape. Neither has lost the attachment of their childhood. However, their lives are very different.

Jim has a respectable job, but travels around a great deal. He has no family—no children. It seems, too, that he has lost his connection with the Nebraska plains where he grew up.

On the other hand, Antonia has a large family, a loving husband, and a successful farm. They have worked hard for what they have, and their lives are complete. Antonia is full of enthusiasm for every aspect of her life, feeling every bit at home with her children as well as her orchards.

Jim has lost his grounding, while Antonia has realized all that she ever wanted. Ironically, where Jim followed the strict dictates of society, he was never encouraged to embrace life with his entire being, and now leads an isolated existence. But by ignoring society's dictates, Antonia has achieved a full and happy life, which she would not trade. Even in light of their differing circumstances, Jim is able to see the woman Ántonia has become, a heroic figure in her own right.

We won't write your essay for you, so an outline will have to do.

I'd like to add another possible idea, though I don't know what sort of intrigue the question is suggesting.

It's easy to show the growth that Jim and Antonia go through, and between the time we first meet them and the last book, they are in very dofferent places. It's easy to suggest that despite being poor financially, Antonia is rich in things that don't have monetary value, so you could easily pair the two main characters and use them for your question.

Even though most of the characters Cather focuses on are women, she narrates from a male perspective, I suppose, to keep a more objective distance.

In the "Sample Outline" section of the Study Guide examines the roles of women and immigrants, the two most important groups that Jim focuses on:

Willa Cather has chosen to represent many of these characters as successful and independent women, much like herself.

Outline
I.Thesis Statement: Many of the females in My Antonia achieve a success and independence that had once been reserved for men.

II. Antonia
A. Works farm like a man
B. Makes wages and spends money
C. Moves west
D. Becomes head of household on Cuzak farm

III. Frances Harling
A. Helps father in his business
B. Helps townspeople avoid Wick Cutter
C. Makes money and buys gifts

IV. Lena Lingard
A. Becomes dressmaker
B. Moves to Lincoln and opens shop
C. Won’t marry and be subservient to a man
D. Lives a single, carefree life

V. Tiny Soderball
A. Works as a single woman at a hotel
B. Starts a lodging house in Seattle
C. Helps found Dawson City during gold rush
D. Moves to San Francisco a wealthy and independent woman

VI. Conclusion: Willa Cather is implying her own success as an independent woman by making many of her fictional female characters independent and successful.

AND with the immigrants:

I. Thesis Statement: Willa Cather wants to emphasize the importance of character in surviving the ordeals of immigrant life on the prairie.

II. Antonia is full of good qualities
A. Praises Jim for killing snake
B. Works hard in fields and at Harlings
C. Learns English quickly from Jim
D. Survives her fathers suicide and Larry Donovan’s leaving her

III. Other hired girls have good qualities
A. Lena wants to build a house for mother
B. Lena runs her business with intelligence
C. Lena has compassion for others and she cries in the theater
D. Tiny is generous and independent

IV. Townspeople seem listless and unlikable
A. Wick Cutter is devious and ugly
B. Mrs. Cutter is loud and ugly
C. Salesmen at the hotel are unlikable
D. Townspeople at dances are dull and snobbish

V. Immigrants without admirable qualities don’t become successful
A. Russian Peter recounts his horrible deed and dies
B. Mr. Shimerda is feeble and weak-minded and dies
C. Mrs. Shimerda is miserable and lives unhappy life
D. Ambrosch is unfriendly and unlikable

VI. Conclusion: Through the fate or fortune of characters in the novel, Willa Cather depicts the importance of virtues by failure or success.

Obviously, Antonia is the hero of the novel as she is both the ideal woman and immigrant: hardworking, self-sufficient, independent and a family person, resilient, and intelligent.  In fact, Antonia is Nebraska herself: she is mother earth.  Speaking of Antonia, Jim ends the novel thusly:

..she still had that something which fires the imagination.... All the strong things of her heart came out in her body.... She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.