When recalling the female characters from My Antonia an anecdote about carrots, eggs, and coffee beans comes to mind. Each of the items on their own have good qualities however when the items are placed in boiling water they drastically changed. The carrots strong and hard become weak after being placed in the boiling water. The once fragile eggs become hard and rigid. Coffee beans however release their flavor and aroma. The coffee beans changed the least but by changing the water or their surroundings become something better.
The women in My Antonia show how they change and evolve into better women when faced with adversity. Frances Harling, Molly Garner, and Lena Lingard all change while in Black Hawk. They do not weaken or become hardened and jaded when faced with adversity; they roll with the punches and come out on top.
Frances gains a greater sense of responsibility. After the death of her father she takes on many new responsibilities. Frances, like the eggs, became tougher when faced with trouble. She seems to become stronger and more resilient after her fathers death. She takes over his business and becomes successful because of her perseverance. She works harder and with more dedication than ever before. Frances demonstrates a woman gaining success through her hard work and dedication.
Molly Gardner was married but was truly the woman behind the successful man. Molly was originally strong but like the carrots knew when to act weak. Molly Gardner was not a weak character but she did allow herself to play housewife when it suited her. Molly was fascinated with material things and because of this was driven to achieve wealth and success even if she had to drag her husband along. Molly was the smarter of the two she made many of the important decisions in the marriage. Because she was the more intelligent she also ran the business through her husband.
Lena Lingard wanted a better life than what she had. It was this overwhelming desire to make a better life that was the driving force behind most of her actions. It was because Lena disliked her work on the farm and wanted a better life that she decided to move to town and become a seamstress.
The warm blackness of summer nights, settling over your lawn and drifting down familiar street signs, over coffee shops closed for the night and broken down asphalt. Dust, collecting on creaking wooden floorboards and swirling through age-old sunlight. A song forgotten, notes away from your ears. Nostalgia is an emotion that all human beings experience and know well. Willa Cather expands on this fact, infusing her award-winning novel, My Ántonia, with sentimentalism and melancholy. Cather tells a tale of home, drawing from the idealistic “American dream” that all Americans know well. Jim Burden, a young orphan, moves to the countryside, spending his days watching men work in the dusty fields and find community amongst themselves. He adores
Jeannette is a hero because both are represented as being forgiving, caring, and believing in people. By having theses qualities, Jeannette is able to persevere through her life. Jeannette is forgiving because she is able to rise above her bully, Dinitia, and befriends her (Walls 142). She is able to accept Dinitia’s “apology” and move on. Jeannette is also caring. She is caring because she also helps Dinitia with schoolwork (Walls 142). She does not invited Dinitia over because “Erma had made it clear how she felt about black people” (Walls 142). By keeping Dinitia from Erma, Jeannette is protecting her from Erma’s racism. By protecting her former bully, Jeannette shows just how caring she really is. Jeannette also believes in people and chooses to see the good in them. When Brian accuses their father of spending all of his money on booze, Jeannette defends him (Walls 78). Her father says “I swear, honey, there are times when I think you're the only one around who still has faith in me” (Walls 78). Jeannette then tells herself that she will never lose faith in him (Walls 78). Because she is able to keep faith in her alcoholic dad, she believes in him and that one day he will move on. By being forgiving, caring, and seeing the good in others, Jeannette is a the character archetype of a hero and uses her qualities to help her persevere in
“Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Most children learn this proverb and immediately try to disprove it, or simply do not believe it. However, age allows one to see the truth in this phrase. In My Antonia, a novel by Willa Cather, the protagonist, Jim Burden, reflects on his childhood in the American frontier. Despite achieving wealth and an elevated social position, benefits most associate with attaining the American Dream, Jim Burden eventually realizes that true success, and happiness, is found in strong emotional connections.
The American college dictionary defines success as 1. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors, 2. The gaining of wealth, possessions, or the like. This has been the general seances for the past hundred years or more. But in more modern days the prospective of success has changed slightly. It has shifted to having a good education, going to collage, getting a carrier getting married & having children. Having your own home and eventually dying and passing it all on to a child or children. Success is no longer satisfaction or personal goals. It has been supplemented by the goals society has preset for the populous that have been drilled into the minds of the young from the very beginning. To a man named Santiago in The Old Man and The Sea by: Earnest Hemingway, success was to conquer the Marlin Santiago had fought for so long. But as a cruel twist of fate his success is taken away in an instant when the prize he had fought so hard for was eaten by sharks, leaving Santiago with no spoils left to show for his hard fight. He was even so crushed by of the loss of the Marlin that he cried out to the sea "I am beaten.....hear stands a broken man" (234). Santiago still experienced success in the fashion that when he returned to port the little boy named Manolin that he had taught how to fish earlier in the novel was allowed to come back to fish with him. This was the ultimate form of success that was perceived for Santiago by Hemingway. To Jean Valjean in Les Misreables By: Victor Hugo , Valjean's success was represented in the form of going from convict to loving father of a daughter. The little girl named Cosette may not have been his true daughter, but after he had had dinner with a bishop that had seen the possibility of good in he started the transformation of his life. he met Cosettes mother and vowed to save her daughter from the place where she was being kept. The success Valjean experienced was what made his character the man that he was. But to Willa Cather in My
Ever since she was a young girl. Jeannette had set high goals for herself. Since she was so advanced in school and genuinely enjoyed learning, it made sense that she would want to do big things with her life. Whether it was being a veterinarian or a geologist, her dreams extended far beyond her homes in little desert towns or Welch, West Virginia. However, because of her poverty-stricken home life, many people believed it didn’t seem likely that she would be so successful. One day, while living in Welch, Jeannette goes to the bar to drag her drunk father back home. A neighborhood man offers them a ride back to their house, and on the ride up he and Jeannette start a conversation about school. When Jeannette tells the man that she works so hard in school because of her dream careers, the man laughs saying, “for the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans” (Walls 183). Immediately, Jeannette tells the man to stop the car and gets out, taking her father with her. This seems to be a defining moment in which Jeannette is first exposed to the idea that she is inferior to others. Although this man said what he did not mean to offend her, Jeannette is clearly very hurt by his comment. To the reader, it seems as if she had never thought that her family’s situation made her subordinate to those
...inds love along the way. She makes rash decisions in bad situations, faces the truth that she has been avoiding, and finds her place in the world. While her journey takes some unexpected twists, Lily learns to make the best of what she has, and go for what she wants. She learns to move on from the past, and make a brighter future. But most importantly, Lily learns to accept that life is unpredictable and that by doing her best Lily is living life the way she wants to.
”(3) Marie, Jeannette’s mother, completely refuses to take care of her own children. She doesn’t care for her children as any mother should. Any child, even at the age of three, should not be making hotdogs in a hot oven. This act shows how much independence her father has instilled in her.
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
With a husband and two children at the age of twenty eight, Edna Pontillier realized that the mother-wife life was not for her. With her new found independence Edna’s husband was unsure of how to handle his new untraditional wife. “I came to consult—no, not precisely to consult—to talk to you about Edna. I don't know what ails her.”(pg. 109) Mr. Pontillier is a loving and good husband but, his slight narcissistic personality causes him to lose touch with his wife. Mr. Pontillier buys Edna bonbons and compliments her in front of their friends but it would seem that he enjoys spending time with his friends and working more than he values his time with his wife. “Coming back to dinner?" his wife called after him. He halted a moment and shrugged his shoulders.”(pg. 8) The only reason Mrs. Pontillier stays with her husband for so long is because of her children. Although the Pontillier children are not major characters they help demonstrate her true commitment. Edna would rather die than let her children think their mother left them to be with another man. “She thought of Leonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body...
In addition, Claudette is constantly reminding herself of the drills and instructions in which she is to follow to become human. This implies that as Claudette is trying to eradicate from her wolf ways and behave, she has to remind herself of the human rules and qualities in which she is supposed to have and follow because she still has that wolf in her that is constantly trying to show itself. This shows that Claudette is struggling with these issues in the early part of the story. While Claudette has struggles trying to adapt to human culture, she also has some accomplishments through her struggles. First, the author tells readers that Claudette “had an ear for languages” This shows readers that Claudette is developing human skills. This implies that Claudette is succeeding in this new human world as she is developing these human qualities and adapting to humanity. Next, Claudette shows another accomplishment as she can read at a fifth grade level. This is an accomplishment for Claudette as she tries to reach her goal of adapting to humanity because she has developed another human quality in which wolves do not possess. Again, Claudette displays yet another accomplishment as she “graduated
Antonia and Jim of My Antonia In Willa Cather's My Antonia a special bond is formed, shattered, mended, and eventually secured between the main characters, Antonia Shimerda and Jim Burden. Jim and Antonia seem to be destined to affect each other's lives dramatically, from the beginning of the novel. Starting at a young age, the main characters lives are intertwined. They form a special bond, which have both positive and negative affects on their relationship.
In the same way, Jim recognizes that it is the "hired girls" like Antonia who will form the backbone of the society when the next generation comes: "the girls who once worked in Black Hawk kitchens are to-day [sic] managing big farms and fine families of their own; their children are better off than the children of the women they used to serve" (150-1). These assertions--of the women's direct involvement of the development of the region, both agriculturally and socially--highlight an important point: "it is insufficient to think of nationalism affecting gender in a one-way relationship" (Walby 237). In other words,...
Jeannette Walls was born into a poor family who often had to live homeless and without food. The environment in which she grew up in is what gave her the characteristics she possesses. One trait that describes Jeannette is that she is very adventurous. Since she was constantly exposed to new surroundings, she became curious of them. While she was homeless in the desert, she would play a game with her father called Monster Hunting. She grew to not be afraid of anything, since she could fight off these so called “monsters.” Also, Jeannette is very decisive. To get away from Welch, a poor town in West Virginia, she made sure that she would get enough money to move to New York. She did this by getting a job to save up money for a bus ticket and for college. Along with this, Jeannette is very ambitious. She worked very hard to get accepted into college by working for the school newspaper, since she wanted to become a journalist. On the other hand, Melba Patillo was born into a middle class family who lived in Lit...
In actuality, she was defiant, and ate macaroons secretly when her husband had forbidden her to do so. She was quite wise and resourceful. While her husband was gravely ill she forged her father’s signature and borrowed money without her father or husband’s permission to do so and then boastfully related the story of doing so to her friend, Mrs. Linde. She was proud of the sacrifices she made for her husband, but her perceptions of what her husband truly thought of her would become clear. She had realized that the childlike and submissive role she was playing for her husband was no longer a role she wanted to play. She defied the normal roles of the nineteenth century and chose to find her true self, leaving her husband and children