Free My Antonia Essays: Importance of Landscape

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Importance of Landscape in My Antonia In the book, My Antonia, the landscape along with Jim's reactions to it help us to feel all the emotions of the scene. His feelings of lonliness, sadness, awe and happiness are felt through his words and we can form a picture from the descriptions, adding to what we already know. He feels these emotions in the first few scenes. All because he wants a place to call home. The feelings we get when Jim arrives are awe with hints if lonliness. He pulls into town and is being taken to his grandparent's house. He is riding in a wagon and since he is having trouble sleeping and tries to look at the land and sees nothing. This can be seen in the lines: "There was nothing but land: not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made...I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never before looked up and at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it...I did not believe that my father and mother were watching me from up there; they would still be looking for me at the sheepfold down by the creek, ... I had left their spirits behind me... I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be."(pgs 11-12) We see that Jim is a state of awe. He does not see this place as land or a country, but the building blocks for such things. He thinks he is in the heavens, not on the planet. He feels like he is in his own universe. The landscape adds a sense of lonliness as well. He looks at the land and there is nothing he can hold onto so he will know where he is, no mountains or anything. The feelings of awe can also be read as lonliness. He is looking in wonder at this new land, but he feels so alone. He is in the middle of nowhere. He also believes that the spirits of his parents will not be there for him. I'm sure the fact that his parents died upset Jim, but he also think that they will no longer be there for him since he has left.

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