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 homesickness overtake his responsibility to his family.
A second suicide in the novel is described by Ántonia. She tells the story of a tramp that she encounters; he opens up to her and talks about drowning himself, noting that the ponds are too shallow to do so. Instead, he throws himself into a threshing machine.
Wick Cutter is another character who commits suicide in the novel, and he does it by fatally wounding himself after he has shot his wife to death. Cutter is attempting to subvert a law that would have allowed his wife's family to inherit his estate. His suicide is his ultimate spiteful act after living a life of exploiting others for his...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
own gratification and a final attempt at control, something that was of prime importance to him in life.
By including the three suicides in My Ántonia, Cather may be observing that self-destructive tendencies can overtake people for different reasons. By contrast, Ántonia is a survivor; she is able to absorb and eventually process the reasons these men have opted to end their lives.
In 1918, Willa Cather wrote the novel My Ántonia, illustrating the story of Jim Burden and Ántonia Shimerda as they enter Nebraska as pioneers in their childhoods. Jim is an orphan while Ántonia’s family are immigrants from Bohemia.
The first winter is very harsh on the Shimerda family as their home is not properly set up to handle the elements. In Nebraska, Mr. Shimerda comes to understand the plight of the immigrant experience in America. In Bohemia, he has a great job as a musician, but that skill is not important to the pioneers. As such, he begins to lose touch with the value of his life and eventually commits suicide via shotgun.
The next suicide comes in the Cutter household. Ántonia eventually takes a position as a housekeeper with the Cutter family, where she learns how to run a household. She is great with children, which foreshadows her future as a mother. One night, Mr. Cutter makes an uncomfortable comment to the housekeeper when she was supposed to be home alone. She has Jim stay at the house and confront Mr. Cutter when he returns later in the night. This violence also foreshadows the violence that Mr. Cutter commits against his wife. After he shoots her in order to foil a supposed plot to take his wealth, he stabs himself in the neck in order to play victim. This neck wound ends up being fatal and results in a suicide.