A psychoanalytical look at the characters of My Antonia provides a better understanding of action vs. intent of each individual, particularly Jim Burden. The introduction prepares the reader by laying out a profile of Jim. Without the understanding of the origin of the novel the reader would not be able to assess the true meaning of the novel nor would they really grasp the concepts and issues that are being discussed through the story itself. So, with this essay I will bring together the importance of the introduction and how it correlates to Jim's search for a parental role.
Jim Burden is one of the more complex characters that any one reader will ever encounter. His abandonment issues and just his whole childhood read like a case study that a psychologist would write up on an extremely troubled child. Jim Burden also has a mother-like lover, Antonia, and finally comes to take his sexualized and gendered identity in this world. In the view of Lacan's Mirror Stage, like Edna Pontellier who wishes to return to her childhood memory, to return to the world of the Imaginary, in which "sometimes I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided" (Chopin 520), Jim Burden recollects his boyhood living in the great midland plain of North America where he feels he and Nature are one, but, unlike Edna who goes back and does not come back, Jim goes into the realm of the Imaginary and comes back to the Symbolic, experiencing the process of the Mirror Stage. These are the reasons why I try to apply psychoanalysis in the interpretation of the novel.
Willa Cather's My Antonia begins with Jim Burden's "an interminable journey acr...
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...p with Antonia and also the significance of the introduction to this novel. The introduction is set up as to provide some insight into what the psychological state of Jim Burden is. Conclusively one can see that Jim Burden used Antonia as a mother figure throughout his life and with the information given by the introduction we can better correlate the actions of the Jim character in the novel and his unconscious feelings and emotions about Antonia.
Works Cited
Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Hougton Mifflin, 1988.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1989. 508-598.
Green, Keith, and Jill Lebihan. Critical Theory & Practice: A Coursebook. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Wright, Elizabeth. Psychoanalytic Criticism: Theory in Practice. New York: Methuen,1984.
Antonia's mom smokes and she has been really sick lately. Her mom is the antagonist in this story because she can't even get out of bed unless she feels good. Since her mom has been sick, Antonia has to take care of everything around the house, including her brother. So one day Antonia was at a friend's house and her mom and brother decided to go on a picnic and when they were done she took her son to a motel, and then left to go to a bar down the road.
2. Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 3-5.
Paradise of the Blind by Doung Thu Huong. Translated from Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson. New York: Perennial, 2002.
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
Hoberock, Barbara. “Senate panel OKs bill to test welfare recipients for drugs.” Tulsa World(ok) [Serial on the Internet]. Newspaper Source. 04 Feb. 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2011.
There is an ongoing debate over whether or not welfare recipients should be drug tested to receive the benefits. Both sides of the argument have merit. Those who oppose the idea of drug testing say that it is unconstitutional and violates the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, they claim that this law stereotypes and discriminates against those from low socioeconomic demographics, implying that because they are poor, they must be drug addicts. However, those who support the law note that its intended purpose is to ensure that taxpayer money is not being squandered on people who only plan to abuse this assistance. Only nine states so far have instituted drug testing of candidates for welfare assistance. This drug testing has proven to be prohibitively expensive in many cases. Consequently, some states only test subjects with whom they find suspicion, or who have admitted to past drug use. Though proposed drug testing of welfare applicants initially appears to be a good idea to eliminate potential abusers of the system from receiving assistance, it appears that even more money may be wasted on the testing process, which negates the savings that are the primary objective of the law.
Trust is the first one of the characteristics and is very important in our profession. Without trust in our profession we could not accomplish anything. In Chapter on...
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. A Norton Critical Edition: Kate Chopin: The Awakening. Ed. Margo Culley. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 3-109.
“Success doesn’t happen overnight.” Apparently, the Germans did not get that memo. On the morning of August 13, 1961 police and soldiers in the city’s Soviet sector began temporarily crowding streets and fortifying alleyways with trucks, tanks, bricks, and barbed wire. In addition, the asphalt and cobblestones on the linking roads were torn up. Perplexed residents observed in distress as their own c...
Pamela K. Gilbert, “’Scarcely to be Described’: Urban Extremes as Real Spaces and Mythic Places in the London Cholera Epidemic of 1854,” Nineteenth Century Studies 14 (2000): 149-72.
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.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 535-625. Print.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Anthology of American Literature. Volume II: Realism to the Present. Ed. George McMichael. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. 697-771.
Norman, G. D., & Steyn, P. S. (2013). The Intrauterine Device in Women with Diabetes Mellitus Type I and II: A systematic Review. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 1-11. Retrieved January 21, 2014, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24396605
NG, N. (2012, 12 17). Wah lao! video on singlish goes viral . Straits Times. Retrieved from http://newslink.asiaone.com/user/OrderArticleRequest.action?order=&_sourcePage=/WEB-INF/jsp/user/search_type_result.jsp&month=12&year=2012&date=17&docLanguage=en&documentId=nica_NP_2012_26455080