Willa Cather’s 1918 novel My Ántonia is often celebrated for its complimentary depiction of the immigrants that flocked to America at the turn of the twentieth century and hailed for its progressive approach to the ever-relevant immigrant debate. Despite the novel’s superficial benevolence towards foreigners, Janis Stout questions the authenticity of the book’s (and, by extension, Cather’s) kindnesses in her critical article “Coming to America/Escaping to Europe.” Stout argues that Cather’s ethnic characters (or lack thereof) reflect the popular, discriminatory views of her time, and extracts evidence from both the novel and the author’s personal life to buttress this claim. Stout’s criticism inspired my own interpretation-- that Cather’s treatment …show more content…
There were several reasons for which Czech immigrants were regarded more positively than the thousands of immigrants of different nationalities: first, Bohemians’ were white. As Stout reminds, “white” is “a term that that then meant not only not-Black but also not-Italian, not-Asian, not-Jewish” (470). Race is and has always been a very arbitrary construction, and for their stark whiteness Bohemians were considered more familiar (and therefore, more trustworthy) than various other ethnic peoples. This explanation, however, does not account for Cather’s disinclusion of the large, majority white, immigrant population which sought refuge from war-stricken Germany. Why, then, did Cather’s supposedly inclusive novel omit mention of the innumerable German immigrants that fled to the American midwest in the midst of World War I? Stout’s logic convinces: “she obscured the fact that Germans were by far the largest single group of immigrants in that area” because “German immigrants were being subjected to intense suspicion of disloyalty.” If we thus concede that Cather’s treatment of immigrants is subject to popular American attitudes about certain foreign peoples, it follows that she might have manipulated her Bohemian characters to forge a positive image of American foreign relations; there is sufficient evidence that injected the Czechs as …show more content…
The supposedly inclusive author was a highly ranked editor of McClure’s Magazine, a publication in which “The anti-Semitic [and anti-Italian] note was being struck repeatedly” through unfounded accusations of minority involvement in criminal activity (Stout 469). American distrust of Jews and Italians originated from a xenophobic ideology that these peoples stole business from whites (as reflected in the greedy Jew stereotype) or incited trouble for the white community (as exhibited in the Italian mafia trope); these images contrast greatly with that of the subservient Bohemian maiden, and thereby explain the disparity in the immigrant groups’ treatments. It is clear from her role that, if Cather did not actively contribute to racism against Jews and Italians, she at least permitted discriminatory propaganda to litter the periodical’s pages. As Cather exhibits no signs of remorse for this arbitrary prejudice in the years before she wrote My Ántonia, one can only suppose that these hateful sentiments targeted several of the minorities featured in her novel as
These groups fought continuously against the restrictions imposed onto them, a discriminatory government, and the forced mixture of American culture and that of the minorities culture in which resulted in the “Melting Pot.” Additionally, Limerick used excerpts of documentations from several governments in which imposed these restrictions and acts on the afore discussed minorities in addition to personal experiences from both ends of the spectrum. Moreover, through the use of these personal statements, we are allotted the insight to the original discrimination minority Americans experienced in addition to explaining parts of history that most people do not often
Randall III, John H. "Intrepretation of My Antonia." Willa Cather and Her Critics. Ed. James Schroeter. New York: Cornell University Press, 1967. 272-323.
...people seem barbaric from the sophisticated people of Boston. Though, this was not Willa Cather’s intent, she only meant to glorify the strength and endurance required to be a pioneer. She had written this text to bring the true nobility of frontiers people to the cities attention. The nephew of this story, also the speaker of this text, had bared the rough world of being a pioneer and respected his Aunt so much more because of her perseverance of staying out in the isolated world. The truly depressing part of the story was the end, when the music was over Aunt Georgiana cried out in plea to her nephew that she did not want to return to the West. Her nephew understood because he had experienced the harsh environment of the unsettle land. Cather’s main theme of this writing was to praise the pioneers who had settled the land of America for the people of the future.
My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a book tracing the story of a young man, Jim Burden, and his relationship with a young woman, Antonia Shimerda. Jim narrates the entire story in first person, relating accounts and memories of his childhood with Antonia. He traces his journey to the Nebraska where he and Antonia meet and grow up. Jim looks back on all of his childhood scenes with Antonia with nearly heartbreaking nostalgia. My Antonia, is a book that makes many parallels to the sadness and frailty, but also the quiet beauty in life, and leaves the reader with a sense of profound sorrow. One of the main ways Cather is able to invoke these emotions in the reader is through the ongoing theme of separation. Willa Cather develops her theme of separation through death, the changing seasons, characters leaving and the process of growing apart.
Racial discrimination has been an issue among different cultural groups, ethnic races and many religions. It is an issue that has stopped people from becoming well diversitized and embracing multiculturalism, especially during the olden days where slavery and wars were a huge part of the world. Racism has created a separation between people, causing many dilemmas’ to arise. This problem has been seen and touched upon throughout many works of literature and verbal presentations. A discourse on racial discrimination will be used to exemplify how individuals abuse their rights, categorize humans and ill treat others through an exploration of the texts in, Snow Falling On Cedars and The Book of Negroes. These novels have given an insight of the discrimination between different classes of people and the unfavorability of one’s kind.
...n the trying time of the Great Migration. Students in particular can study this story and employ its principles to their other courses. Traditional character analysis would prove ineffective with this non-fiction because the people in this book are real; they are our ancestors. Isabel Wilkerson utilized varied scopes and extensive amounts of research to communicate a sense of reality that lifted the characters off the page. While she concentrated on three specifically, each of them served as an example of someone who left the south during different decades and with different inspirations. This unintentional mass migration has drastically changed and significantly improved society, our mindset, and our economics. This profound and influential book reveals history in addition to propelling the reader into a world that was once very different than the one we know today.
In 1891, marking the elimination of "free land," the Census Bureau announced that the frontier no longer existed (Takaki, A Different Mirror, 225). The end of the frontier meant the constant impoverishment, instead of the wealth they had dreamed of, for a large number of immigrants from the Old World: they came too late. My Ántonia, however, illuminates another frontier, a frontier within America that most immigrants had to face. It was the frontier between "Americans" and "foreigners." The immigrants were still "foreign" to the "Americans" who came and settled earlier. They had to overcome the language and cultural barrier and struggle against the harsh conditions of life. The novel focuses on the ironic moment that the frontier spirit - a uniquely American one - is realized through "foreigners." Furthermore, it is women, the "hired girls," who are put in the foreground in the novel. What has made America is the foreign within, or rather, the foreign women on the frontier.
Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is the blood flowing out from a bleeding, injured America. Only a tragic symptom of a larger trauma, one can trace this blood and book back to the greater issue: the deep gash of racism. Overt and obnoxious, the gash screams for attention; it is large and apparent and seen by all. It exists in the public space, displayed for any to see, undeniable and visible and rambunctious. But Rankine’s Citizen is not that gash. It is none of these things, yet calls attention to the existence of the gash through its depiction of the myriad microaggressions that plague race relations in America. Claiming instead the private, personal space as its territory, microaggressions describe the various ways in which racism
Leaving everything one has ever known to seek a new life in a foreign country is enough to make anyone cower away. However, that did not stop author of America and I, Anzia Yezierska, who uncovers the truth of being an immigrant in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Thousands of immigrants come to the United States every year in search of finding their dream and living with freedom. In America and I, Anzia Yezierska demonstrates the hardships of living as an immigrant in America while using repetition, imagery and tone.
Through the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather, the Gilded Age can be seen as a period of change, rapid development, curiosity, as well as new physical and social territory. This is not what makes the novel interesting, as any textbook contains this information. More interesting in My Antonia is how the period is shown through the novel, the groups of people it chooses to focus on, and how it portrays these groups. Considered by many as a modernist novel, it chooses to show a lot through a little. From a time when powerful, Anglo-Saxon, male industrialists ruled, the novel shows a different side. Although seen through the eyes of a male protagonist, it is a novel mostly about women; immigrant women for that matter. The novel shows the economic and social struggles these women went through, which exemplifies the larger issue of immigration during the Gilded Age. In
The female, adolescent speaker helps the audience realize the prejudice that is present in a “melting-pot” neighborhood in Queens during the year 1983. With the setting placed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, the poem allows the audience to examine the experience of a young immigrant girl, and the inequality that is present during this time. Julia Alvarez in “Queens, 1963” employs poetic tools such as diction, figurative language, and irony to teach the reader that even though America is a place founded upon people who were strangers to the land, it is now home to immigrants to claim intolerance for other foreigners, despite the roots of America’s founding.
The impact of these biases is shown through the author’s own experiences as he progressed through his life. His stories evoke a sense of pity enough, because we realize that because of discriminatory actions against foreign races in America, they feel as though they live in a hostile environment. For instance, when Staples went to a jewelry store, the proprietor “stood, the dog extended toward [him], silent to [his] questions, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.” This shows how the woman made an unfounded
Memories are a stockpile of good and bad experiences that are retained of a people, places. How do you remember your childhood memories? Do certain people, places or things trigger these memories to the past? Does the knowledge of these experience still affect your life today? Throughout the novel My Antonia, Jim's nostalgia for the past is represented by nature, symbolic elements, and above all Antonia.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
Raya’s essay is an informative account of life for a multicultural American, because it is told from an actual multicultural author’s viewpoint. It gives the reader a sense that the information is accurate. It would be harder to accept the viewpoint if the author were for example, a white male writing about how a Mexican, Puerto Rican woman feels. As Connie Young Yu points out, information retold by someone who didn’t live the experiences is most often falsely perceived. Yu uses the example of white American historians writing about the lives of Chinese immigrants. Yu says that there is no accurate account for the lives of the immigrants, because they didn’t document their lives themselves. The little information that there is in history books only tells about their obvious accomplishments. There is no official understanding of their personal lives or feelings (Yu 30).