1. Discuss the significant of each of the following citations. Provide several examples that support each quote.
A. "The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxious mothers need have felt no harm. They mistook the mettle of their sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk Youth."
The above quotation is telling about how the elderly people of Black Hawk did not trust the younger girls. This brought about when the young girls: Antonia, Tiny, Lena, etc. and Jim would constantly go to the parties held in Black Hawk. Jim's grandmother especially did not approve of Jim going to parties. Although, Jim continued to go, but eventually felt that he should obey his grandmother. Antonia, whom was working for the Harlings, was forced to choose between going to parties or continue working for them. She chose to continue going to parties, but then started to work for the Cutters.
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"This was the road over which Antonia and I came on that night when we got off the train at Black Hawk...For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, and incommunicable
Using these methods enables Cather to emphasize differences between Jim and Ántonia, showing her readers the cause of his nostalgia for home: “While [the sun] hung [in the low west], the moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel… for five, maybe ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world.” Cather represents Ántonia and Jim as the sun and moon, respectively; always pulled back away and together but never meeting. At this passage, Ántonia and Jim had just reunited after many years apart. Jim had returned from Harvard whereas Ántonia had a child. The impossibility of them reconnecting on a fundamental level is much like the moon and the sun, where no matter how close they get, they will never meet. Cather emphasises the difference to explain how Jim misses Ántonia and by extension his home, depicting the change and distance from each other as a great and impossible void to cross. Cather reinstates this point, writing, “I lay awake for a long while, until the slow-moving moon passed my window on its way up the heavens.” (161) Here, Cather calls Jim “slow-moving”, one who reflects life and light rather than emitting it. In comparison, Ántonia is the sun. Cather describes her as a “rich mine of life, like the founders of early races” (162). The further emphasis of difference at this point in their lives enables Cather to
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.
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
When she was done at the bar, she went back to the motel and passed out on the floor. So when Antonia got home, nobody was there. About half an hour later, her brother called and said that their mom had passed out and that they were at a motel. Her brother didn't know the name of the motel, so he looked around and remembered the bar. He told his sister the name of the bar that their mom had gone to, and then she knew right where they were.
a.) “Stella is my precious little sister. I call her little in spite of the fact she’s somewhat older then I” (55)
Slaves in the virtual protection of their accommodations can declare the disputes of rage, self-assertion, and revenge that they should usually hide when in the company of the slave master. The cadets keep this state of mind treasured for the boys of the Citadel. Since this haven that the boys have shaped is so treasured, a fear of people outside the walls sets in. If outsiders are permitted in, their persona has to switch and the shelter is disrupted. This is the reason why numerous cadets at the Citadel are misogynistic toward women. With the intimidation of female cadets being inserted into the school, several of the male cadets were confronted with the recognition that their refuge could be uncovered. This fear results in harassment, anger and rage, and violence. Faludi’s article recalls the harassment aimed towards Shannon Faulkner, the first female to be admitted into the Citadel. Cadets communicated their disapproval and fear by doing things such as vandalizing her home. In an effort to keep the position of the citadel the same the cadets stated; “Studies show, I can’t cite them but studies show that males learn better when females aren’t there. If a girl was here, I’d be concerned not to look foolish. If you’re a shy student, you wont be as inhibited.” Another cadet stated, “You don’t have to impress them here. Your free.” And a third cadet “She would be destroying a long and proud tradition.”
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.
My Antonia, Jim's nostalgia for the past is represented by nature, symbolic elements, and above all Antonia. The Nebraskan prairies are beautiful and picturesque and set the scene for a memorable story. Big farm houses and windmills placed throughout the graceful flowing golden yellow grass become a nostalgic aspect of Jim as he leaves his childhood life behind. The frontier includes destructive and depressing winters and luscious summers that
It is important to first note the general symbolism the Nebraskan land represents. As Altieri suggests, while the land is a "powerful protagonist in the conflict to survive and prosper," it also represents the great hardships and rewards that result because of it (1). Common knowledge tells us everything that serves to sustain life comes from the land, and this information serves to illustrate the general impact that the land and environment can have on life. However, because land is so important to society, it also represents hard work, sacrifice, and hardship. If the land is dry, frozen or starving, so are those people who depend on it. Nevertheless, Altieri notes, "the Nebraskan country in My Ántonia symbolized permanence, endurance, hardship, freedom of spirit, and personal creativity" (1). Ántonia's family, the Shimerdas, come t...
Jim's first impression of the town is, " ... a curious social situation. All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living (1023). " There was a harsh segregation between the country or "hired" girls and the town girls. The girls of the town were considered to be "refined" whereas the country girls were perceived as "disreputable" (1023). The town's people looked down on these girls; "The country girls were considered a menace to the social order
While the first sentence is mostly objective description, the second sentence is full of the affectation of a subjective point of view. Aunt Amy is described as wearing a “white collar [that] rose from the neck of her tightly buttoned black basque, and round white cuffs set off lazy hands with dimples in them, lying at ease in the folds of her flounced skirt.” Words like “tightly,” “lazy,” and “ease” seem to describe what would be considered the traditional concept of the Southern woman. The wealthy Southern female is conservative, pure, fragile, peaceful, and delicate. These descriptive words could be viewed as an alignment with the traditional Southern view of women; therefore Amy is “beautiful and charming” in the eyes of the Grandmother and “every older person” and “everyone who had known her.” However, within those same words there appears the rather opposite yet still highly subjective view of the young girls who are attempting to reconcile the new values and ideas of the present with the old traditions of the past. The words “tightly,” “lazy,” and “ease” could be seen from the young girls perspective as negative descriptions suggesting boundaries, confinement, limitations, and exclusion.
27. This passage of Little Women has significant context toward the text by relating how close of a bond that the March sisters shared.
A. At the beginning the boy’s believe that if they have rules and follow them that they will be okay and get rescued.
3. What is the thesis of this essay? Where do you find it? Do you have suggestions for clarifying it?
...she describes the pompous women. The author uses the women's conversations to emphasize the reasons Scout remains a tomboy and refuses the traits of Maycomb females.