Jim Burden's Romanticism in My Antonia Dreams are nothing but our innermost desires. We are made to pursue these dreams and have them be the driving force in all we do. Jim Burden is no different; like everyone, he has dreams, and he does his best to pursue them and fulfill them. Or does he? Jim writes the story of Antonia through his own life. He is plagued with the disease of romanticism. He cannot move on; though time will move, Jim's thoughts and emotions are rooted in the past. Frances Harling said it right when she said, "the trouble with you, Jim, is that you're romantic." Jim is a romantic, a dreamer who never acts. Many things contribute to Jim's romanticism, his experiences, his emotions, and his actions; however as no one could suspect, it helped him mature and appreciate loves lost. The outcome of things depends on both the power of the individual and destiny because they tie in with each other. Things do not just happen, randomly, they happen for a reason only to be seen at the end of things. For example, Jim was raised by his parents in Virginia until they died, upon which his relatives shipped him west to his grandparents. This is part of his journey through life which was predetermined. Jim, as an adult writing, realizes that Destiny makes our decisions and nothing need be worried about because he "did not say my prayers that night [the first night on the farm in Nebraska]: here, I felt, what would be would be." (7) The next big chance Jim takes where his is unsure of what will happen is going to college. Over there he befriends Gaston Cleric, a Classics Instructor. Later on Cleric gets a job at Harvard that "he would like to take me East with him. To my astonishment, gran... ... middle of paper ... ...ng a lonesome and bland life, when I can shape my future now and become the man I want to be. Although Destiny has already laid out my path, I will grow as Jim did and realize that the power of the individual and Destiny can work together only if you believe in it. Jim learned this lesson too late, and paid the price of misery and living forever thriving off of his memories. Works Consulted Bloom, Harold, ed. Willa Cather's My Antonia. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. 1987. Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995. Randall III, John H. "Intrepretation of My Antonia." Willa Cather and Her Critics. Ed. James Schroeter. New York: Cornell University Press, 1967. 272-323. Wells, Kim. "My Antonia: A Survey of Critical Attitudes." August 23, 1999. Online Internet. November 4, 1998.
Cather chooses to refer back to Jim’s past at the end of My Ántonia to emphasize how, even though the story ends, Jim will always remember Ántonia and their experiences together. Despite both of them growing up and leading very different lives, Ántonia and the recollection of his youth are so important to him that he still remembers the days of his childhood, travelling to a place he would call home.
Willa Cather’s “My Antonia” is a collection of fictional memories loosely based off Cather’s own childhood. Throughout the novel young Jim Burden encounters several characters and befriends men and women alike, but two female characters become very close; Antonia Shimerda and Lena Lingard. Antonia and Lena both aid Jim throughout his life; one through childhood and the other through adulthood. While both characters have minor similarities, the differences between them are pronounced.
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.
My Antonia took place in the late 19th century. Jim Burden narrated his recollections of Antonia's life and their childhood together, after a twenty-year absence. The novel began when the ten-year-old orphaned narrator moved from Virginia to the plains of Nebraska to live with his grandparents. He spent his childhood alongside his grandparents and a neighbor Bohemian on the prairies. This Russian girl, new to America, was Antonia. Jim and Antonia spent endless afternoons together. He taught her English and about America. Her lessons were of life and strength. His daily life on the farm changed when he moved with his grandparents into the nearest town, Black Hawk. Antonia found a job as a house hand in town, even though her family was still on a farm. Their adolescent years were occupied with dances and picnics. Jim went on to college after graduation. Antonia, never able to go to school, was courted but left with a child out of wedlock. However, soon after, she was married to a fellow Bohemian and they had eleven children. This book is the moving story of his friendship with Antonia, his Antonia.
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
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
He is apprehensive about seeing Antonia, fearing that she will no longer be the idealized person who exists in his memory. “I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it” (pg. 127). Jim is not let down when they meet, as even though she is now a “battered woman” (pg. 137), she possess the wonderful spirit that Jim adores. In contrast to Jim’s material prosperity and lacking personal life, Antonia has chosen to live the labor-intensive farmer and has a devoted husband and children.
Despite the major exterior differences, however, there is a strong correlation between the characters of Jim and Georgiana. Both are relatively weak people who allow another person to direct, dominate, and exploit them. In both cases this willingness to submit to a will other than their own is based on some incarnation of love or lust. Jim is immediately attracted to Alena, and that attraction grows into an addiction to the exciting life she leads. In the midst of his narrative he reflects on his feelin...
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.
Rate of Reaction Between Marble Chips and Hydrochloric Acid. The aim of this experiment is to find out how different variables affect the rate at which the reaction between Marble chips (CaCO ) and Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is used. There are many variables that affect the rate of this reaction such as the following. 1.
Ferguson, Mary Anne. "My Antonia in Women's Studies: Pioneer Women and Men-- The Myth and the Reality." Rosowski's Approaches to Teaching 95-100.
Investigating the Rate of Reaction Between Marble Chips and Hydrochloric Acid I am investigating the rate of reaction between marble chips (calcium
In her novel, My Antonia, Cather represents the frontier as a new nation. Blanche Gelfant notes that Cather "creat[ed] images of strong and resourceful women upon whom the fate of a new country depended" . This responsibility, along with the "economic productivity" Gilbert and Gubar cite (173), reinforces the sense that women hold a different place in this frontier community than they would in the more settled areas of America.
Jim's high school years quickly come to a close, and he is offered a spot at the university in Lincoln. He makes a great success of his commencement speech, and spends the summer hard at work in preparation for his course of study. Before leaving, he takes one last trip out to the countryside with Antonia and her friends, where they gather to reminisce about old times together.
Rosowski, Susan J. “Willa Cather’s “A Lost Lady”: The Paradoxes of Change.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 11.1 (1977): 59. JSTOR. Web. 07 March 2012