Personal Memories In My Antonia

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My Ántonia brings together the life of a young boy and young Bohemian female in the old prairie. The book details this hardships and memories together as they grow older and their lives change in the ever-different worlds. The one thing that keeps them close through all of the turmoil is their personal memories. Neither Jim or Ántonia ever recall large historical events though but rather only the ir personal memories which keeps them closer than they think if when they are separated for long periods of time through the novel. The novel uses immigrant labor to form its foundation for the story and then recounts personal memories from Jim’s life about the immigrants to show the hardships they face coming into a new world for the first time. …show more content…

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

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