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Portraying the character of Antonio
My antonia literary analysis
My antonia important character relationships, issues and elements
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My Antonia was not written as a true autobiography, but as a correlation of Willa Cather's life itself. Some argue that Jim Burden is just a delineation of Willa Cather. For instance, “Willa Cather was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska to live with her grandparents in 1883” (willacather.org). Cather uses her own experience to build up the beginning plot of her Novel My Antonia. Cather's My Antonia describes the struggle and character development of Jim Burden's character as he tries to model himself after a Bohemian immigrant who is unable to cope with the guilt and strenuous life of an emigrant.
Jim tries to model himself after a man who is crushed by the yoke of caring for his family. Since he has no paternal figure in his life, Jim is unable to decipher the emotional pain of Mr. Shimerda. At this point, Jim first starts to contemplate his romanticized view on life. The irony of this is when Mr. Shimerda promises to give Jim his gun after he becomes a real man. Antonia translates it into, “My tatinek say when you are big boy, he give you his gun” (Cather 32). Mr. Shimerda defines being a real man as being able to provide for your family, which he has been unable to do since they migrated to Nebraska. This causes a chain reaction in Jim and Antonia. Mr. Shimerda's death causes Jim and Antonia to sort of diverge paths with their decision making, and as Antonia begins to age. She takes on the parental role, or catalyst, that Jim needs to develop as a character.
Jim and Antonia's relationship could not extend beyond the friend-zone because of the divergent paths their lives were taking after Mr. Shimerda's death. Later in the novel, Antonia had to quit school
Shackelford 2 in order to keep up with the responsibilities her f...
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...who fell into the slot of most emigrants to
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America at the time.
Willa Cather used her own experiences to start the plot and give the story background. Both she and Jim Burden were born in Virginia, and moved to Nebraska. In the beginning of the novel, Antonia is the crutch that supports Jim through his slow early development. Later, she just becoms a catalyst that continues jim's development as a character. My Antonia is about the character development and struggle for Jim to overcome his sense of Nostalgia after modeling himself after a Bohemian immigrant who was unable to bear the pressures of emigrating to America.
Works Cited
Cather, Willa. My Ántonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Print.
"Willa Cather- About Willa Cather - Red Cloud Nebraska (NE)." Willa Cather-About Willa Cather - Red Cloud Nebraska (NE). N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
Jim is a “man on the run” moving from school to school to avoid trouble and feels alienated from his family and peers. The film is stylistically noirish with Nicholas Ray’s use of low-key, garish lighting, the use of shadows cast on character’s faces, and the setting of a city street at night in the opening scene. The film also deconstructs film noir conventions by including a fatherly policeman, white heterosexual antagonists, and a female love interest that isn’t responsible for his troubles. Themes of the teen drama genre are also heavily present, such as Jim being the “new kid” in school, choosing the popular girl as a love interest, being late to the trip to the observatory, and a fight with a bully on the first day of
2. Mr. Shimerda begs Jim to “Te-e-ach, te-e-ach my Antonia” in Book I, Section III (just at the end). Who learns more through their relationship, Jim or Antonia?
Jim was also impacted by the death of Mr. Shimerda. He was not so much impacted emotionally but he was impacted in a way that he felt he had to keep an eye on Antonia and make sure she didn’t lose her way. Jim is in possession of Mr. Shimerdas gun and in a way this hold Jim responsible to keeping the memory of him alive in Antonia. Jim didn’t want Antonia to stray from the gentle teachings of her father. He begins to see this when she starts working with Ambrosch and even worries that she is becoming like her mother. A boastful and insistent
Antonia and Jim became very close friends and went through many childhood experiences together. Their friendship was soon torn apart when Ambrosch and Jake engaged in a quarrel which separated the two families for quite some time. But once again, the families resolve their differences and become close again. (Chapter 1)
Theme of Sacrifice in My Antonia and The Song of the Lark. A common trait for Willa Cather's characters is that they possess a certain talent or skill. This art usually controls the lives of these characters. According to critic Maxell Geismar, Cather's heroines who possess a skill often either do not marry or marry men whom they dominate; if they do marry the marriage is without excitement because their passion is invested in their art.
He is apprehensive about seeing Antonia, fearing that she will no longer be the idealized person who exists in his memory. Jim is not let down when they meet, as even though she is now a “battered woman … but she still had that something that fires the imagination, could stop one’s breath for a moment” (226). Age has not dampened the spirit that Jim was drawn to throughout his youth and now his adulthood. He speaks about her through a lens of true love and respect, telling her children that he “couldn’t stand it if you boys were inconsiderate [towards Antonia] … I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there’s nobody like her” (222). Jim refers to Antonia as a “rich mine of life,” and it is clear that Antonia’s type of richness is more valuable in Jim’s eyes. Through her, he is able to realize that tangible fiscal wealth is far less precious than the impalpable beauty of emotional connection and
When men refuse to fight, they are pegged as ‘not real men,’ ‘woman-like’ or ‘gay. (Module 3) At first it appears that the hoodlum Buzz is merely jealous of Jim’s attempt to befriend his girl Judy, but as the film progresses it appears that Jim bugs Buzz on other levels and the boys’ rivalry becomes increasingly homoerotic. Jim draws attention to this during a fight when he reminds Buzz that only “punks use knives”, “punk” being a code word for gay men. The switchblade knife sticks up in the middle of the frame like an erect phallic symbol. The possibility that the cause of Jim’s chaotic behavior is a fear of queerness is also raised by his disgust at his father’s emasculation in the family home. We see his father wearing a woman’s apron and being dominated by his mother and grandmother. Jim begs his father to beat his mother to bring her into line. In a misogynistic culture, the only solution to sexual ambiguity is violence against the female, but what Jim really seems to want is for his father to beat the threat of femininity, which his mother has come to represent out of the family. Jim fears that unless his father becomes a real man, he will be tainted by this emasculation and unable to become a real man himself. Like the film Full Metal Jacket the gun becomes a “phallic symbol,” or a representation of the power associated with the possession of a penis. (Module 3) It is
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.
...Jim has a profound and perhaps romantic relationship with nature. It is also evident that Jim sees a strong connection between his childhood neighbor, Antonia and the Nebraskan landscape that embodied his childhood adventures. Both Jim and Antonia have their own, personal relationship with nature that connects them to childhood. However, the two complex characters also connect the childhood relationships that they shared with one another to the land; The land that brought Jim and Antonia together will continue to spiritually connect them in the future, despite the miles that keep them apart. The characters of My Antonia, particularly Jim and Antonia are not just connected through memories; they are connected through the environment and natural world. The Nebraskan landscape constructs who the characters of Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda are and what they symbolize.
The landscape and the environment in Willa Cather's, My Ántonia, plays several roles. It creates both a character and protagonist, while it also reflects Cather's main characters, Jim and Ántonia, as well as forming the structure of the novel. Additionally, it evokes several themes that existed on the prairie during the time in which the story takes place. Some of these themes that directly relate to the novel, which are worth exploring, are endurance, hardship, and spirituality. Additionally, the symbolism of the "hot and cold" climate will be examined, revealing the significance it has on the novel in an overall manner. The analyses will further explain Cather's construction of the novel, which is based on three cycles: the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life and physical development and lastly, the cultural cycle.
In My Antonia, Antonia worked with Ambroche in the fields to help their family survive. She worked hard to provide for everyone, toiling all day on the farm instead of going to school and benefitting herself. In The Jungle Jurgis promises that he will provide for the family, taking an unpleasant job at a meatpacking place just to keep his word. Unfortunately, this is not enough, and Ona and thirteen year old Stanislovas are forced to get jobs. Antonia, Jurgis, Ona, and Stanislovas’s dedication to providing for their families mirror James Braddock’s attempts to take care of his family. The news of his kids being sent away motivates Braddock into begging for enough money to get by. The desperation many characters feel to provide for their family is a pertinent theme in My Antonia, The Jungle, and Cinderella
Cather mends a special relationship between Jim and Antonia that is formed and broken throughout her novel My Antonia. The two characters meet at young age and begin to develop a ------- friendship. Jim teaches Antonia the language and culture of America while Antonia shares her culture and morals. Soon their respective friendship turns into a brother-sister relationship, an ardent love but not intimate.
The life of Antonia Shimerdas, the main character in Willa Cather's My Antonia, could easily be judged a failure. Perhaps measures of wealth, career, beauty and love fall short when held next to Antonia. If one could categorize life by that unnamable light or spirit which Antonia never loses, she would surpass all who belittle her achievements in other areas.
In My Antonia, Cather writes that Mr. Shimerda implores Jim to “Te-e-ach, tee-e-ach my Án-tonia” (book one: chapter three), though it is Jim who learns more. Jim is introduced as an orphan who has yet to discover who he is. Due to the loss of his parents, Jim travels to Black Hawk, Nebraska to live with his grandparents. After meeting the Schimerdas, an immigrant family, Jim begins teaching Ántonia English. Over the course of this friendship, Cather writes how Jim observes/admires Ántonia, leading to a new perspective on life and self-discovery.
Jim’s nostalgia of Antonia is introduced in the novel first when he is leaving for school and Lena is introduced back into his life; second when he comes back to Blackhawks to see Antonia. When Jim is first leaving for school he is laying on the bank with Antonia, he exclaims, “ Antonia seemed to me that day exactly like the little girl who used to come to our house with Mr. Shimerda” (129). This happened before Jim and Antonia spent any time apart, however, Jim still recalls the time of his fond childhood memories. He consistently recalls the time spent with Antonia because he has had feelings for her his entire life Talki...