Carries Possession, So Jim's Tale

This saga is an exquisite account of a life-long reverence for a women who Jim has known as a friend and companion since his childhood when he, an orphaned boy from Virginia, and she, a fourteen year old immigrant from Bohemia, travelled to the unsettled, unbroken plains of Nebraska at the turn of the century. The reader follows the mesmerizing tale of immigrant origins, hardships, as Jim celebrates the strength and the beauty of a heroine, Ántonia Shmirida, whose strength to overcome, has won both his love and soul. While Jim lives on his grandparent’s already successful farm, the immigrant family is forced to reside in a grass house carved into the side of a hill. The Bohemian immigrants struggle against nature to learn how to farm, to survive the hardship presented in this foreign, unaccepting land. Although her name is in the title, it is not truly her story. The preposition “my” in the title carries possession, so Jim’s story is his version. The subsequent story is his account, his perspective, of his first

love. Therefore, Jim’s bias make him an untrustworthy source of information and an unreliable narrator.
This novel is striking.

The way Cather describes the scenery and takes the time to paint a backdrop for the characters seems out of touch with the other Modernists who seem to focus on anything but cheer. Cather offers detailed description of lush nature, vibrant red grasses, wildflowers, and beautiful, bountiful wheat fields. But while Cather also focuses on the happy romantic ideas of the beauty of nature, she also offers a full view of the human experience on the Plains. She also displays hardship, loss, violence, and despair, especially with the suicide of Antonia’s father. She pairs utopia and civilization against the dystopia of prairie life. She highlights the dangers and violence in both types of society. She contrasts the struggle between old and young generations. She offers a panoramic view of life, personal fortitude, and the pioneer spirit. Cather pits the old world immigrants against the new American culture which is so strange and

unaccepting.
One important, very Modernist theme, is the theme of hopelessness or entrapment which we see in the introduction briefly. Another, is the theme of the loss of innocence. As the land is settled and cultivated, so are Jim and Antonia. This story follows the two as they grow into adulthood. They lose their innocence and childish ideology of how the world works. I would argue that they both lose it quickly. These themes accompanied by Cather’s three dimensional collection of characters has the masterful attributes of a truly American epic.
My Ántonia offers the idea that important people, memories, feeling, and experiences change us in a way that they stay with us until our death. The connections in the daily lives of the characters is the same in our, the readers’ lives, as well. In the introduction, we are told that his stories of Antonia are told so masterfully with such love and admiration that we feel we know her. For me, this is one reason why this story is so thoroughly compelling. But if Jim really loved Ántonia, why didn’t he marry her?