My Antonia
1. Jim Burden, a successful New York City lawyer, leaves an acquaintance a memoir of his Nebraska childhood in the form of a recollection of their mutual friend, Antonia Shimerda.
Jim had first arrived in Nebraska at the age of ten, when he was made the trip west to live with his grandparents after finding himself as an orphan in Virginia. On this same train, Jim has his first glimpse of the Shimerdas, a Bohemian immigrant family traveling in the same direction.
As fate would have it, the Shimerdas have taken up residence in a neighboring farm to the Burdens'. Jim makes fast friends with the Shimerda children, especially Antonia, who is nearest to him in age, and eager to learn English. At her father's request, Jim begins to tutor Antonia, and the two of them spend much of the autumn exploring their new landscape together.
Shortly after Christmas, tragedy strikes with the suicide of Mr. Shimerda. After an emotional funeral, the Shimerdas retreat into despair, and the Burdens struggle to be as accommodating as possible. As a result of the hardships that the Shimerdas suffer, a wedge is driven between Antonia and Jim.
A couple of years later, the Burdens decide to move into town, and shortly thereafter Antonia takes a job as a housekeeper with a neighboring family, the Harlings. Jim begins to see more of Antonia once again, especially when a dancing pavilion comes to town and enlivens the social situation.
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.
In Lincoln, Jim throws himself into his studies, which take up the majority of his time in the first year and a half of his course. In the spring of his second year, he begins to see a good deal of Lena Lingard; a mutal friend of his and Antonia's who has always intrigued Jim. After several months of theater going and dalliances about town, Jim decides he needs to make a fresh start of things and prepares to transfer to Harvard for his final two years of college.
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.
As the Joad family faces the same trials that the turtle faces, and as the desperate farmers have to deal with car dealerships, the intercalary chapters help to set the tone of, as well as integrate the various themes of The
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
As remarked by Jim, “If the story once got abroad, I would never hear the last of it” (162). Understanding the setting of a novel is important, since it is the environment that can shape and impact the characters of a novel. In this case, this shows the vast difference living in a town is than living in a country, as Jim did early on in his life. In the country, everything was spaced out, therefore rumors and stories such as this are harder to spread. However, in Black Hawk, since things are closer together, Jim must be more aware and vigilant of his surroundings. Such a shift in setting may serve to mold Jim into a different person than Ántonia, as she is more connected with the country
The case study of “What should we do with Jim?” has been read and a set amount of questions has been asked about the reading, which will be answered by the following:
The first people he met were the immigrants and began to grow on them. He specifically grew on the immigrant women, and he met more of them after he began to become closer with Ántonia in particular. “The little girl was pretty, but Án-tonia- they accented the name thus, strongly, when they spoke to her- was still prettier (Cather, pg. 14).” This is the first time he laid his eyes on Ántonia and met her and from this point on her would befriend her and through her he would meet some of the other foreign females. A little farther down the road, Jim began to hang out with Lena more and I think he hung out with her more because he was able to learn from her and enjoy her company. “I liked to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her and everything was true… We used to linger a long while over our coffee in that sunny corner. Lena was never so pretty as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world every day, and her eyes had a deeper color then… (Cather, pgs. 130-134).” Jim eventually left the immigrant females because I think he had learned enough from them but he realized it was time for him to move on and focus on himself versus other people. “You won’t do anything here no. You should either quit school and go to work, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won’t recover yourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian… She’s very pretty, and perfectly irresponsible (Cather, pg. 138).” He took this advice from Cleric Gaston and moved on with his life to Harvard because he saw it was in his own best
Cather sets the tone of the story at the very beginning; a young Jim Burden's parents have died leaving him to go to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. Right from the start Cather plants the seeds of abandonment, with the finality of death, in Jim's life. When he arrives in Nebraska he is very numb to life, but he is soon caught up in daily life on his grandparents' farm. He is blissfully happy when he first meets Antonia. They become great friends and share numerous adventures. Cather uses brief, beautifully descriptive and nostalgic recollections of situations and feelings to increase the pain and sadness of the separations that she places throughout the book. An excellent example of this is the way Cather builds up to Mr. Shimerda's suicide.
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.
As Jim attends school with other children of his social stature, Antonia is forced to manually work in the fields. A division between the two characters is immediately created. Antonia develops resentment towards Jim; "I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mother can't say no more Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him.
From the start of the novel to the very end, descriptions of the Jim’s environment
They have a friendly conversation by candlelight. Jim reveals that he was never engaged, and that his old girlfriend was the one who put the announcement in the yearbook. They no longer see each other. Laura speaks admirably of Jim's voice, and he autographs the program of the show he was in, The Pirates of Penzance‹she was too shy to bring the program to him back in high school, but she has kept it all these years. Jim tries to give Laura advice about raising the level of her self-esteem, and talks about his plans to get involved with the nascent television industry. He speaks of the numerous courses he is taking, and his interest in various, programmatic methods for self-improvement. He calls money and power the cycle on which democracy is built.
This passage, similar to the previous one, employs diction to help embellish the character profile of Ántonia. As it has become evident in the previous pages, Ántonia and her father share a deep, intangible, and intimate relationship. Compared to the perfidious and stern character of Mrs. Shimeda, Mr. Shimerda evokes characteristics of compassion and sensibility. In this section of the novel, sadly, Mr. Shimerda has passed away leaving his family behind in the harsh and tiring conditions of the prairies. In this passage, Mrs. Burden is talking to the family about the death and the ramifications it could inflict on the Shimerdas. Using words and phrases such as, “poor little girls” (67) or “he’s left her alone in a hard world” (67), help to
lastly ,the view of the scenery only tells half the tell by how Jim is treated by others. as Jim and Huck move along own the river all the people they met dun something to Jim.he was put in chines ,soled ,bought,and beaten.see men is men back then people didn't understand that and to day there are similar things that happens not as harsh but similar.like how people judge from how a person looks than how they are as a person .this may not be right but people still do it like slavery back than they dun it but it may not have Been