My Ántonia

Jim and Antonia both learned an abundance through their adventures but one learned a lot more through education than the other. In the story, both Antonia and Jim both went down two different paths. Jim went down a path of education and Antonia learned more from her life lessons. When Jim turned 13 he realized he should be attending school. “ I was now thirteen they thought I ought to be going to school”. When Jim noticed he needed to go to school he started going right away. Soon…

American Dream. While often thought of in a modern context, this idea is seen in older works as well. In Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and Ole Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth, the attitude with which immigrants approach their new lives decides how prosperous they become. Many immigrants see the prairie as an opportunity, either for their families or for themselves. Immigrants in both My Ántonia and Giants in the Earth come to the United States in search of a better life. They are driven by a desire to…

Redemption, is the act of making up for; making amends for or offsetting. Redemption is often looked at as a strong theme throughout many novels across the world. Three novels redemption finds its place in are The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, My Antonia by Willa Carther, and A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Each of these novels, in one way or another are considered stories of redemption. These three novels show the theme of redemption through strong character situations and…

Willa Cather “The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor” (Willa Cather Quotes). This is a famous quotes from a very well-know American author from the modernism writing period, Willa Cather. She has received a lot of recognition for her novels that are written about life on the Great Plains. Some of her most famous pieces of work included O’Pioneer (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Antonia (1918). A lot of her work was inspired by her…

At the beginning of the novel, Antonia is seen as a naïve girl who was the interpreter of her family. Even though, she only knew enough English words to help her family, she seemed very smart. As, the novel continues she takes English lessons with Jim Burden, and her ability to fast learn the English language makes her seem even smarter. However, her ability doesn’t stop to learn a different language from her native language, but can work the land and doesn’t fear the hard labor that her…

“What is the city over the mountains/Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air/Falling towers/Jerusalem Athens Alexandria/Vienna London/Unreal.” Images such as this are prominent throughout T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land. These images depict, quite literally, the wasteland that society has become, and displays the fear that the author has for the future. Images of wastelands-desolation, isolation, destruction, ruin, the fall of nature- are dominate theme within modernist literature and…

Cather did seem to admire Antonia for her characteristics. Antonia exhibited three strong characteristics: resilient, kindhearted, and loyal. She was resilient in several ways. For example, Antonia was pregnant as she was deserted at the altar from her fiancé, Larry Donovan. Bearing a child out of wedlock and raising it alone is shameful according to Black Hawk standards. Instead of her hating the world and her fatherless baby, she gathers herself by staying positive and raising the baby…

Although Jim was the one teaching Antonia English, Antonia’s life taught Jim much more than a language. Antonia’s parents had been through a lot of hardship in their lives, yet they were still quite conceded people. and Jim learned that no matter the amount of poverty or wealth, devastation or luxury- there are always selfish people in this world. “After dinner, when (Mrs. Shimerda) was helping to wash the dishes, she said, tossing her head, ‘You got many things for cook. If I got all things…

The novels of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and My Ántonia the settings portrayed by both authors reflect the strong dominant force over the characters who inhabit that specific geography. The river in Huck Finn, as well as the prairies of Nebraska represent a powerful sustenance to the main characters of the novel. The landscape of the novels in addition, is a depiction of what the American identity really is and how the character deals with it when time begins to change their familiar…

16).” The isolation in the new country affects Mr. Shimerdas more than any of the other member of the family. Mr. Shimerdas feels isolate especially because he did not want to emigrate, left his group of friends and change his way of living. As Antonia says “My papa, he cry for leave his old friends what make music with him. He love very much the man what pay the long horn (Cather p. 59).” Later, when he starts a friendship with the Russians, Pavel and Peter, he is content to have some friends…