Jim's Relationship In My Antonia

Mr. Shimerda begs Jim to, "Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia", in the beginning of Book One. As the novel goes on, it is clear that Jim has learned much more throughout his and Antonia 's relationship. Although we have seen Antonia grow into an intelligent, confident, strong woman who has overcome many difficult obstacles, it seems that Jim has yet discovered the true cycle of life and how some memories are just more precious than others. Overall, I feel like, "My Antonia" is a coming of age novel, not just for Jim, but for all of the other characters as well.
In the beginning of the novel, Jim and Antonia are still very young. Jim has not yet become a teenager, and Antonia has only been one for a couple of years. He is newly-orphaned and is moving …show more content…
They are unfortunately too afraid to go out with them because the boys know that many of the townsfolk feel superior to the girls. Unlike the townsfolk, Jim believes girls like Lena and Tony are more worthwhile and interesting than the other girls in town. He even stated, "Daughters of the Black Hawk merchants believed they were more refined, or, elegant than the country girls," and, "I thought the attitude of the town people towards these girls very stupid." He explained to the townsfolk that Lena 's father was well respected back in Norway, and they simply replied with, "Why did it matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who couldn 't speak English." Jim explains how people did not view the country girls as individuals, rather as "the hired girls," and they disapprove of him wanting to be around them so much, rather than children his own age. Francis Harling even tells him, "In some ways you are older than boys of your age," and many others said that "there must be something queer about a boy who showed no interest in girls of his own age, but could be lovely enough when he was with Tony and Lena and the three Mary 's," in which he despised these comments very much, and was very saddened when people disapproved of his interest in the country girls, even those he did not know. He has always admired Antonia, but he also begins to admire the other country girls too, such as Lena and Tiny. He said, "these girls have grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and has got little schooling themselves, but the younger brothers and sisters, for they have made such sacrifices, never seem to me, when I met them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a