Some issues you might respond to include the role of nostalgia and memory in the novel. To what extent do Jim’s memories of the past evoke a sense of nostalgia for a lost era? How important is the mythology of the “pioneer experience” to the novel (and/or to the culture of this part of the world…)? In what ways does the book provide a commentary on the way memory works? You might also consider the presence of the many embedded narratives within this novel. How do the stories of Pavel and Peter, Blind D’Arnault, Wick Cutter, etc., fit into the larger narrative? Can you sense a structure in the novel, in spite of the various digressions and tangents that come up?
For some interesting information about Cather, and about her significance in the state of Nebraska, take a look at the Willa Cather Foundation website.
February 27, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I don’t see it listed above, but one of the things that really struck me after I saw your question at the end of class yesterday was the way Cather portrays the ideas about gender. It kind of seems to me that by seemingly reinforcing these gender role ideas throughout the book she almost achieves a greater purpose of undermining these ideas to the reader. In the book Anonia is very much going against almost everything that a traditional woman would do/stand for. She works in the field along doing the man’s work, and even works with the men. Cather’s other characters really look down upon this, as shown in their thoughts and dialogue. As a reader, however, you see how these other characters look down upon her and you see just how “dumb” this is and start leaning the other way. I think that she more or less achieves an undermining of these traditional gender roles, at least for women, by reinforcing them within the text itself.
February 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
The pioneer aspect to this story is extremly important. My Antonia allows many people to experience life on the prairie even if they were living in the city. Today it allows us to travel back in time and view the old way Nebraska was. Nebraska today still looks very much like it did back when the pioneers came. There are many prairies and farms but also bigger cities. From someone who lives in Nebraska I loved reading this story and learning what Nebraks and the pioneers were like during Willa Cathers time.
February 27, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think thus far in Willa Cather’s My Antonia, there are clear dividing lines between book I and book II. In book I, everybody depended on each other both for help and the tools that they borrowed from one another. In the case of Antonia’s family, they relied on Jim, Jake, the grandfather, the grandmother, and Otto to help and teach them the ways of the farm that they were yet unfamiliar with. Then Jim’s family moved to the city, and soon after Antonia followed. Here, I believe that both are becoming assimilated to the semi-urban life of Black Hawk and also shows how numerous families were beginning to move to the town, symbolizing Frederick Jackson Turner’s “End of the Frontier.” Antonia, hardened by the country life, soon becomes assimilated to the ways of life of the town girls. Also, Jim begins to grow up in many ways: he begins to have feelings for women, particularly Antonia, and he also graduates high school and plans to attend a University. In conclusion, I believe that book II of My Antonia represents the closing of the frontier and the inevitability of everyone needing to become at least partially assimilated to urban life.
February 27, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Concerning what you had addressed in class concerning the effects of someone’s memories and another person’s memories, I have a few comments. I agree with you when you stated that one person’s memory of a situation, say for example Jim’s depiction of the midwest, could have been completely different from the Shimerdas. I believe that Cather, then in sense, does a good job of depicting the way that memory works.
I just want to address another thing, which I brought up in class…and that was the role of modernism in Cather’s story. Jim and his family were a depiction of modernism; whereas, the Shimerda’s were a depiction of the past. Because of this, I wonder if Cather did not discriminate against the old ways…and therefore, I am sort of in question about whether or not she was a conventional woman at that time? I know that is kinda off the topic..but I am just wondering.
February 27, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Cather’s “My Antonia” is something that strongly reminds me of my grandparents as well as the state that I come from. It reminds me of my grandparents because my grandmther always helped my grandfather in the fields with farming while they lived on a farm and made their living off of it. I feel that Antonia and my grandmother have this in common. The whole “pioneer” experience is also something I related to my grandparents as they started off their own farm in the middle of nowhere but eventually assimilated with other people to make a move into a small town, moreso to modernize themselves. (a few hundred to be more precise)
February 28, 2008 at 11:12 am
I did not find that nostalgic feeling from Book 1 to be at all prominent in Book 2. The only chapter I found to be nostalgic was chapter 14, when Jim and the girls go out to the river in the country. The imagery here brought out that longing feeling to be in the ‘old’ Nebraska. For me, the rest of Book 2 was full of somber memories, such as Jim’s loneliness and Antonia’s ‘falling out’ with the Harling family. Even the dances, which seem as if they should bring out a feeling of nostalgia, did not do so because of the underlying feeling of disgust and disappointment (how the town looked upon the girls’ behavior).
February 28, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I think that one of the most intriguing parts of this novel is within the first few pages where Jim says something to the effect of how in his memories of Antonia lies memories of himself. It is an interesting notion that in remembering someone else, one in fact remembers who he or she was with that person, remembers how that person made him or her feel.
February 28, 2008 at 7:20 pm
After all of the assimilation novels, I find this to be my favorite. I appreciate Jim and Antonia’s complex relationship, but what I find to be more interesting is what they stand for individually. Jim, the American, does not spend his childhood like the all-American Huck Finn. Furthermore, he does not help out on the farm but instead chooses to leave the agrarian ideal behind to work in the big city–New York. Antonia, the Bohemian immigrant, is a hard worker who immediately fulfills America’s young woman mold. She is strong and independent through the hardships that her family faces. Working hard to fulfill the American dream, the Shimerdas are experiencing the harsh truths of life and farming on the prairie. The immigrant Shimerda family exhibits life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, while Jim, the native, simply seems an outsider.
February 28, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I’m going to continue on with discussing the gender issue that Cather faced. I didn’t notice anything at first, but after it was stated in class today that Cather was most likely a lesbian, her conflicts with gender and how she incorporates them into the story make perfect sense. I am curious however, if maybe Cather was trying to convey through Jim how she would have lived or wanted her life to be like if she was a boy. It just seems like this may be so because Jim isn’t a very masculine boy, and so far in the book he hasn’t made any actual advances towards women. Cather may have fantasized about women as a young girl, but never made any advances towards them. I don’t know if this is a right assumption, but it just seems that this could be the case since she did base much of her early life on Jim, so she may have base much of her sexual frustration as well.
February 29, 2008 at 1:48 pm
As a midwesterner I too find a sense of nostalgia within My Antonia. I think Jim’s memories of the farm and growing up are fond because of their simplicity. One doesn’t even have to be from the midwest to experience what the time might look like from the details described by Cather. She does an incredible job of picking apart each detail of Jim’s environment. One can almost smell the humid summer air while watching the heat lightening in the sky. I wonder a bit if Cather’s depiction of Antonia is maybe a bit of a depiction of herself? Or possibly of what she wanted to be? Antonia seemed very comfortable and happy with her masculinity, while Cather was possibly not.
February 29, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I enjoy reading this book so far because Cather has a way with words that makes it as though the reader is experiencing the plot as it unravels. Thus, her story is kind of like a time machine in that it shows the reader what it was like to live during America’s transition to modernism. Nonetheless, I would have to agree with Emily that there is a sense of nostalgia found within this specific novel since the main character (Jim) is a romantic and tends to idealize most everything from his past.
Personally, I think that Cather’s deptiction of Antonia is probably like herself- mainly since she lived on a farm in Nebraska as well, moved to town around the same time that Antonia does, and she was quite tom boyish as well. Nonetheless, there is no way for me to know for sure since I obviously never met her and I don’t know anyone who knew her. However, since Cather was not Bohemian, I think that she might be describing herself in Jim as well, but again- there’s no way for me to know for sure. I think I would have to do some research to answer this question more sufficiently.
is more like herself since she grew up in Virginia and moved to Nebraska- just as Jim did. She did not move from a foreign country as Antonia did; however, more than likely is a bit of a depiction of herself
February 29, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Please ignore the last paragraph. Technical difficulties…
Sorry!
March 1, 2008 at 1:06 pm
The headline for the Willa Cather foundation reads: “Enter the 1880’s in Historic Red Cloud, Nebraska… Willa Cather’s Window to the World.” This catchy (rather overstated) “window to the world” language intrigues me. Juxtaposition between the descriptive language Cather uses in “My Antonia” to the lush scenery scrolling across the website reveals many similarities. This indicates some kind of inherent beauty within the prairie and Midwest. We discussed in class how the opening chapter of the book describes a Midwestern childhood as being that which someone must experience in order to appreciate. It is interesting how this ideal is marketed as a tourist attraction. (As seen in Huck Finn Furthermore, the theme of nostalgia and how there is something inherently aesthetic about it is reflected by this foundation’s headline. This attraction of looking toward the past in order to gain perspective of the future is very much alive today.
Additionally, biographical information on Cather reveals that she struggled very much so with personal identity issues (i.e. she went to extensive lengths to change her date of birth, as well as her name). If much of the novel is based upon Cather’s personal life, one might speculate that these identity issues are also present in her characters.
March 1, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Something that struck me in the novel was the fact that Jim was not the only one remembering the past. The Shimerdas and Peter and Pavel were continuously referring to their lives in the “old country,” yet they could not return to their old life; the Shimerdas had spent all their money and Peter and Pavel were haunted by their past. This follows with Jim and Antonia as well: just as Jim cannot return to his old life in Nebraska, neither can Antonia return to old life in Bohemia. This seems to be a continuing theme throughout the novel: a yearning for a past which can never be repeated.
March 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm
My Antonia is definitely a book to help us remember our pasts. Jim and his grandparents have a nice farm and crops and livestock. The Shimerdas don’t have crap. They have to eke by while their family struggles to survive. The Shimerdas are a representation of what Jim’s family started out with. We all have to realize where we come from and the hard work that brought us here today. When they move into the city, they like the neighbors who started out on the farm. The novel seems like a social structure. As immigrants, you start with nothing and work your fingers to the bone. If you want a family, you have to buy some land and work the hell out of it for a decade or two. If you’re not dead by the time you see grandchildren, then you can move into town. The main point of these stories is to realize that America started from nothing. Immigrants built this nation with hard work and a desire to raise their own family. If you can survive the harsh plains and years of backbreaking work, you just might become an American after all. The reason for all the deaths and stories is that it was not hard to live in that time. This novel represents the idea of American Exceptionalism.
March 1, 2008 at 11:59 pm
This book is written from the memory of Jim and as we have discussed in class, the stories are often false, exaggerated, or distorted. However, the validity of his stories is not important. The importance of his stories is that they portray a feeling that comes across to the audience. It is the very same feeling that Jim remembers when I thinks back on his past, and no matter what “actually” happened, his stories are no less true, because they portray a feeling that lives inside of him that is very much real. By reading this book, we can feel and remember the events through Jim as they were or as they are remembered (equally valid).
March 2, 2008 at 4:37 am
I fear I may be slipping into ‘oh god, not another one’ mode for reading this semester. In spite of that, I’ve found My Antonia to be interesting and well written. Still, it does not draw me with the pull it has for some, as I did not have a background in such an area, and thus do not hold the same nostalgia. My Antonia does manage to capture that well enough to paint a clear picture of a different life, and in such a fashion that it fits as the character’s memories. Though I must admit, his has rather a good memory given this outlook(and there’s no way around that, for a character must have good memory if they are to remember enough to fill a book)
March 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm
One thing that I have noticed a lot is the use of the language of the time. The characters speak as if the story is being told from them to the reader, instead of from Jim’s adult friend, the narrator in the beginning. I think this helps to move the entire novel. I think it is neat to see the transitions of the foreigners as they learn English in America. I also think that using this type of writing style helps the stories within the story (Peter and Pavel, etc.) to fit better. They are not completely random that way, but rather, they appear in the text just like a person goes on a tangent sometimes. Also, as we discussed in class, the longest part of the book is the first book, where they are on the frontier. I think the time-memory method of writing is interesting. It’s logical, because that’s how memories and life really are. But also, I think it makes the novel drag a little. Don’t get me wrong, details are important, but I think it is a little too heavy in this book.
March 2, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I feel that ‘My Antonia’ is a classic example of how memory works with regards to the experiences that occur during childhood. Our younger years, it seems, are often inundated with memories that stay with us throughout the course of our lives. I am not sure if our adult lives are boring or what have you in comparison to our youth or whether it is a case of longing for the innocence and carefree approach that often accompany childhood. Jim has a great deal of memories from a limited number of years. These memories, seemingly, are are of great importance as he can recall them with such detail.That period in Jim’s life was obviously a time of growth and discovery. Coupled with the romantic approach that Jim has with Nebraska summers, etc. and Jim has a strong connection to his youthful years in the midwest. He was free to learn and grow and make mistakes. As an adult, Jim’s life seems to be devoid of the romantic connection that he once had for people and places. I believe that we all have connections to certain periods of time. For a majority of people, the best memories are connoted to our youthful experiences and the people that we encountered.
March 3, 2008 at 5:21 pm
In the context of Willa Cather’s My Antonia, I believe she is trying to convey that those necessarily weren’t always the days. Although Jim’s memories of growing up on the prairie with Antonia are fond ones, there are also some instances in which the experience wasn’t spectacular, such as Mr. Shimerda’s death. I believe that when one reflects on the path, one often remembers the better times, because the mind seems to cover up memories that one may not want to reflect on. This is prevalent in Peter and Pavel’s story of the wedding night with the wolves. The incident made it difficult for the brothers to stay in their homeland, so they decided to cover up their past and move to America. I also believe that Jim’s life almost became stagnant as he was constantly reflecting on the past and always wanting to see how things have changed/stayed the same.
March 3, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Its interesting to look at Antonia’s family as outsiders. Jim’s familiy won’t eat the mushtooms because they are strange and exotic like the Shimerdas. When Antonia’s father dies he is not allowed to be buried in the graveyard. These are undercurrents that new immigrants were regarded as suspicious.Even though the Shimerdas are outsiders they are still accepted into the communal society of the country as is shown by the building of the house, the hamper of food Jims grandmother takes to them, the giving of the cow and the giving of the wood for the coffin that was meant for something else
March 3, 2008 at 8:43 pm
It seems that the whole book is based around Jim’s nostalgia. The whole story is about his memories. It’s interesting how the first book covers a shorter period of time, but seems to be much longer. This is probably because it was the first time he met Antonia and had many fond memories of her. In the next couple books he grew up and moved further and further away but his memories always brought him back home and to Antonia. It’s a well written story and almost any reader can relate to it. It’s also interesting to see how pioneers grew up during Cather’s time.
March 4, 2008 at 10:00 am
While reading this book, there was a general thought that kept running through my brain. I don’t know if this follows the above questions very well, but I couldn’t help but notice some congruency with the Nebraska landscape and Jim’s personality. The Nebraska environment seems to sort of design Jim’s character. For example, the river in the book makes Jim feel free and constructs his immense value of freedom. Also, I felt that Jim’s romantic personality was greatly reflected in Cather’s poetic and rather idealist descriptions of the Nebraska environment. It seems to me that the romantic depiction of the landscape that Cather creates is similar to the depiction of Jim’s character.
March 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm
It is interesting to see how Jim, in his youth, can rise above the attitudes of many of the townspeople towards the “hired Girls.” He admires their strength and independence. This is also interesting because in the beginning of the story Jim was somewhat appalled by Antonia’s pride in her hard work and labor. Neither he nor his grandparents really thought that it was right.
I think another interesting element in My Antonia is the connection between Jim and Antonia’s Father. Jim saw characteristics in him that are truly admirable, and is influenced by his brief friendship throughout his maturation in the town of Black Hawk.
Finally, I enjoy reading a story about the midwest. Perhaps this tale is not too far from the experience of people around where I grew up back in those times.
March 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm
The “pioneer experience” hasa significant influence on My Antonia because it the story is about the struggle pioneers faced. The books I immediately thought of while reading many of the descriptions of the prairie and life on it werethe Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingles Wilder. I read them as a child and they remained favorites in my family for many years. I think they, like Cather’s novel, express the nostolgia of living in an era before modern conveniences. Although most people today would not want to live without their cell phones, the thought of living off the earth, and enduring the challenges of pioneer life seems to entregue people. When a person thinks of the frontier, however, they do not concider the harsh reality of living at such a time. The myth behind it is that it was a wild and adventorous life. But actually, it was hard and often discouraging. Cather expands on these harsh experiences with excellent description, but I often feel her best writing comes when describing the untamed beauty of the Nebraska prairie.
March 4, 2008 at 12:17 pm
After reading My Antonia it got me thinking about how much things have changed. The book describes a beautiful, almost surreal, sounding landscape of the Great Plains. Growing up here my entire life and being on farms in this area and surrounding states I have never quite experienced what is described in the book. The imagery makes the landscape sound like it really couldn’t exist in the world we live in today, or even to imagine that it existed in this world previously. Driving through the country side nowadays does not give you even a closely related image of what is described in the book. I also found it hard to believe that anyone could make a flat prairie sound amazing to look at when I have lived on the Great Plains my entire life and don’t put much thought into the landscape or think its worthwhile.
March 4, 2008 at 2:42 pm
“Optima dies…prima fugit.” This recurring statment appears a couple of times throughout My Antonia and states that the best times are the first to pass (we all know this as we have been taught it in class, nothing revolutionary, it is a referance to nostalgia). But I find something very strange about Jim’s nostalgic remembrance in My Antonia. These “best times” that Jim muses on in his recollections are not perfect, and in fact, his memories of his past are filled with horrible and tragic events. Whether it is the death of Pavel, the tension and violence between the Shimerdas and Burdens, the suicide of Mr. Shimerda, the oppressive and violent actions of the deplorable Wick Cutter, the gory and horribly shocking suicide of the bum, or even the stigmatization of the “working girls,” Jim’s youth is not comprised of his best times. They are possibly his worst times. But Jim, like Huck in Huckleberry Finn, has an odd way of dealing with this trauma as he simply passes it off and focuses on his happiness, which centers around Antonia. That is why this book, which is all about nostalgia essentially, is entitled My Antonia. Antonia, and the time he spends with her, is the primary source of his nostalgia.
March 4, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I thought Ashley Johnson’s post was interesting in the fact that she stated that the prairie described in My Antonia is not the prairie we identify with today. It is true that the Midwest landscape has vastly changed through commercialization but yet I believe it has remained somewhat the same. The landscape and makeup of the plains is always changing and allowing new generations to indentify and tie it in with a sense of nostalgia of their past. I guess that I find myself remembering my past childhood days whenever I go back home to visit and experience life in a small farming community. Jim went back and identified what had changed but yet what had remained the same. The look of the past in terms of landscape and people changes over time but it is an overwhelming feeling to go back and see people and places that still have a familiarity about them.
March 4, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Jim Burden is one of the most nostalgic characters I have ever encountered. His memories of the past are so powerful, especially his earliest memories of childhood on his grandparents’ farm. As we’ve discussed in class, Book I of My Antonia is the largest portion of the novel. Book I is also arguably the most nostalgic. Jim romanticizes everything about his childhood; the landscape, the people he meets, and the farm he lives on and the chores he does there. Jim obviously has a special place in his heart for those childhood memories. Later on in the book, nostalgia maintains its firm grip on Jim, but to a lesser degree. The books of the novel get shorter, with more of a time gap between each. Other characters even remark upon Jim’s nostalgia, for example, Frances Harling says, “The trouble with you, Jim, is that you’re romantic.” Jim’s romantic, nostalgic personality contributes to the nostalgic tone of the novel overall, lending a sense of longing for the lost days of childhood on the prairie, during a time when things were simpler.
March 4, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I like this story on so many levels, but also found it a little short on one level. I loved the discription that Cather gives us of the wide open prairie. I grew up in the middle of eastern South Dakota and I know that beauty that she describes. There are wide open spaces, prairie grasses flowing in the breeze, and just the feeling of quiet. It is a place I still miss and I’ve been gone for a long time.
While Cather does a wonderful job of sharing the beauty of the prairie she does not do the best job of sharing the hardness of life on the prairie. Jim never shares how children died before their first birthday from pneumonia, meningits, cholera, measles, and many other childhood illnesses. He never tells of having to haul the water from the well, chopping the wood, hauling the wood, heating the water on the wood stove for cooking and cleaning. He doesn’t share how people worked from sun up to sun down and then work work some more. Jim tells us how wrong he felt it was that the girls worked in the fields like a man, but a woman worked like a man if they were going to survive on the farm. Can you imagine living in a sod house for years!?! This was a hard, hard life on that beautiful prairie.
March 4, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I did like this book, but I find it interesting that one of the ideas that stands out most to me is gender. The struggle that Cather felt throughout her childhood is indirectly expressed in My Antonia. The fact that Cather chose to tell the story through a male narrator says a lot. For example, Jim spends much time in the first part of the book with girls, but once he moves to town becomes more integrated with males. However, the focus is still completely on the females. This for me is too out of the ordinary.I never once thought of Jim as a “manly character”, so Cather’s decision to use Jim as the narrator caused some confusion for me. I had troubles thinking of Jim as a typical male.
March 5, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Although this story was good, it was not one of my favorites. The beginning of the story I liked when Cather described in great detail the prarie, but did not go into depth about how life was really like. The description of the praire made it feel like you were actually there. “Soon we could see the broken, grassy clay cliffs which indicated the windings of the stream, and the glittering tops of the cottonwoods and the ash trees that grew down in the ravine.” I also liked the description of Antonia and her family. In describing Antonia’s eyes…”They were big and warm and full of light, like the sun shinning on brown pools in the wood.” I thought the gender thing was interesting in that she said that “I like to be like a man”….on pg. 1268. Woman back then were suppose to be indoors cooking and not outside working with the men.
March 6, 2008 at 11:55 am
I would say that nostalgia plays a very important role in the novel because anything positive that occurs in the novel seems to be when Jim gets back to his roots so to speak, like when he went back to see Antonia. It is apparent that every time he looks back on towards something it evokes a slew of positive thoughts and emotions that he seems to miss. Jim’s apparent yearning for the past is evident when he has such s drive for the future, yet he has a yearning for the past, as depicted when he decides whether or not to follow his professor out to Harvard. As to the question of what role the “mini-plots” play in the novel, I would say that they serve more as a distraction that anything. I realize that the stories show a depiction of what they did and in the end they have some small amount to relate to the larger story, but more often than not, it just seemed like the only thing that the “mini-plots,” and the larger plot had in common was that some of the main characters were present in both. The novel would have been a lot better without those stories of Pavel and Peter or Blind D’Arnault. Finally it was great to learn the history of Willa Cather because after learning a bit about her past, the reader, is able to see that her feelings are conveyed through Jim, and Jim’s are conveyed through the “hired-girls.” I thought that was interesting to see the chain of people displacing their feelings onto others.CH
March 6, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I was happy that Jim finally returned after twenty some odd years to visit Antonia again. I think he was expecting her to be completly “ruined” or worn down from all the work and toil she had been through in her life. However, when he sees her he notices that her hair is a bit frazzled but she has that same inner glow and excitement that she’s always had. They kept repeating in the book how everyone expected Lena Lindgard to turn out to be the one with nothing going for her, and Antonia would rise above her surroundings and come out on top. Either way both of the women put their reputations and what people thought behind them and lived their lives the way that made them most happy, regardless of the consensus. Throughout the book I think we were all waiting for something in Antonia to snap so she would move on from the farm and “get a better life” but that wasn’t Antonia. The grass and trees were a part of her, and that is what made her most happy, and “moving on” would probably have ended up the same way it did for her father who felt the same way for his old country.
March 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm
In the last book, I found it interesting that Antonia doesn’t recognize Jim when he comes to visit her on her farm. This was probably due to the fact that Jim is in this permanent state of childhood and because of this fact, he has not changed nearly as much as Antonia probably thought he would have. Jim, however, recognizes Antonia despite the fact that she looks older and a bit more worn.
l actually thought that the ending would end in Antonia’s death, but I am happy to find that that is not the case.
I found a few things from the last lecture rather interesting. For instance, the fact that dreams break the laws of time and place. This is a good point and I think that it is one of the key themes in this nostalgic novel. Also, I think that the fact that we work out our problems with the world by means of play is rather interesting, mainly because it’s something I haven’t really stopped to think about. It’s true, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I think I would go insane if I couldn’t stop working and do something fun at least once a day.
March 7, 2008 at 1:30 am
The nostalgia in Cather’s novel is evident towards the ending as Jim realizes how much he misses the old days and how the lovely and seductive ‘hired girls’ changed his life. Since he goes off to college and studies his childhood with Antonia and living on the farm is gone and he spends a lot of his time re-living it in his head. I think that he resents in some shape or form not doing more with other people and going to the parties with the hired girls because they are always in his thoughts and had such a dramatic effect on him.
Yes I think that that novel has loads of structure in it even with the countless digression. In a way that’s what gives the book its structure in the first place. Through these past memories the reader gets the sense of how life was like back in the lost era of Nebraska and how Jim’s life is effected by the relationships he had with all the people. I can’t think of a better way to get the story of Antonia across without going back to when it all began.
March 9, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I really enjoyed My Antonia. It reminded me of listening to stories from my grandparents of growing up in the Midwest. Also while reading just the description of the scenery it took me back in time and made me realize that I have seen and grown up in that same kind of set up (small town in the midwest, everyone talks about everyone).
It surprised me though that Antonia made such an impact on Jim’s life that he remembered so much of her even twenty years later, thus the reason nostalgia played such an important part in the story. It is weird, but it seemed like by going back to and remembering just one person like that made such an impact on his present life. It seemed to give him a positive drive to do things in life and always turned out rather well for him. It would be fun to read a story from the eyes of Antonia and her memory of everything that happened and see what kind of role Jim played in her life.
March 10, 2008 at 5:04 pm
the gender issue is key to understanding the story. Cather may have been in love with the woman who antonia was based after. In this light it is interesitng to look at the role of the male narator. Jim is married but there is no details about his wife. Also he has no children which is an interesting contrast to Antonia’s overabundance of children. Jim is emasculated several times throughout the story. He doesn’t fullfill his role as a sterotypical rural male in the same way that Cather must have felt in light of her sexuallality.
March 11, 2008 at 11:14 am
I agree with Catherine in the fact that Cather could have been in love with the “real” Antonia. Jim never really seems to be overtly masculine, but rather seems somewhat soft in my opinion. I found it frustrating in the first book, because it seemed that Jim was a pushover. When he finally spoke up in reference to the fact that if you don’t like America you can leave, it was only then that Antonia seemed to show him any respect. Beyond the obvious fact of representing a matter of assimilation, to delve deeper into the actions, one could view Cather’s possible frustration with the woman Antonia was based upon. When only masculinity is encouraged, Cather may have felt alienated at her inability to possess traits that the woman she loved desired. Cather’s portrayal of Jim could be her way of embodying what she though Antonia would desire.
March 25, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I do think that Jim’s memories are nostalgic for him because he misses those days. He has only happy memories of those days and was a child without any worries or cares. I do not think that everyone involved such as antonia wish for those days back. I think that for many people they had the pioneer expierence in their head as something really wonderful. The poor imagrant or american putting is sweat and soul and pulling themselves up by their teeth to a wonderful fufilling life. however this book shows a very different side with antonias family and pavel and peter. They show the reality for many families that were sucked into the american dream and it did not turn out at all as they expected.
March 31, 2008 at 3:54 pm
The notion that the truth is relative to whose telling it is something that struck a chord in me. Jims memories of living on the farm evoke a positive emotion because that is when he was happiest. It sheds a positive light on things, even though this happiness was not felt by most. For the people who actually had to endure the unforgivness of the prairie, their accounts of that year would be totally different.
April 8, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Reading My Antonia really gives a poignant representation of the “pioneer experience.” Not only can people in the Midwest relate, but also people who live in the more urban areas at that time can see what struggles, and just the basic lifestyle that these people had to deal with.
April 8, 2008 at 1:24 pm
… (sorry, I’m not a technological genius)…
A major aspect of modernism is the introduction to a narrator that could be seen as “unreliable.” Though I do not know really if Jim is unreliable or not, but because he is telling us what happened and only the “parts he remembers,” it is kind of hard to believe some of what he says. Jim is biased about some things, and so us, as readers, we take on his biases and what he thinks. This point is very modernistic because before this, we didn’t really get to go “inside the narrator’s mind.” Even when reading Huck Finn, we get a sense of what he is contemplating, but never is it fully laid out to us what exactly he feels about the more broad topics at hand.
April 29, 2008 at 1:37 am
I think my favorite part of the story was the pioneer experience aspect. I’m not sure why, but it’s seems like it’s so hard for regional authors to get published, more so than in other parts of the country. But I think it’s so interesting to read any stories from the early beginnings of the Midwest… because as Brittany said, so many things are so similiar! Someone from the East Coast may find it hard to picture, but so many things, like the farms and the fields and nature have not changed at all. My grandparents have a family farm from a long time ago that has been passed down in the farm and looks like it will have several other generations of farmers to come in the future. What many South Dakotan families are doing is not so different that what characters in My Antonia were doing… and that’s why I think it’s so fascinating to read these pioneer experience stories.
April 29, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Jims memories of the past definately show the sense of nostalgia that people have for the memories of their childhood. My memories of my childhood are some of the most vivid memories that i have. I have really enjoyed reading this novel because it reminds me alot of some of the stories my parents and grandparents have told me about their childhoods as well. I also think its interesting that when i remember my childhood i just think of it as being very happy…i dont really associate any negative feelings with it which is kind of what Jim does as well.
April 30, 2008 at 12:59 am
Willa Cather’s, “My Antonia”, is intriguing because she is from Nebraska, and the story takes place in Nebraska. Because Nebraska is similar to South Dakota, the setting of the story is easy to imagine for readers from the Midwest. The issue of assimilation can be tied into My Antonia, as it was in the cases of Oskison’s, The Problem of Old Harjo, and Zitkala Sa’s stories that we read prior to My Antonia. In My Anotinia, immigrants from different parts of the world are living among Americans. Their differences in culture play a factor in the immigrants everyday lives. The Shimerdas are Bohemian, Peter and Paval are Russian, and Lena is Norweigan. My Antonia symbolizes the hardships that immigrants faced in America. As in the case of Oskison and Zitkala Sa, Cather portrays hardships such as being home sick and differences in language and religious beliefs.
As I stated before, people who have lived in the Midwest can relate to the landscape in Nebraska, where My Antonia takes place. Cather does not merely use Nebraska as a setting for the story, but as a symbol. In My Antonia, Jim misses the landscape of Nebraska after being gone to New York for two decades. When thinking of Nebraska, Jim thinks about the enviornment that surrounded him. Jim’s interaction with the landscape symbolizes and describes his interactions with the people of Nebraska as well as who Jim is and his past. I believe his trip back to Nebraska symbolizes that his life is not complete without his past, which is Nebraska and the enviornment that he grew up with.
April 30, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I’m from Nebraska and actually grew up not far from Red Cloud. My Antonia was required reading for all students in public schools and I got to read it in seventh grade. When I sat down to look through it for this class, I was surprised to find out how much of it I didn’t remember.
Growing up in Nebraska today defiantly is different from Jim and Antonia’s childhood. There were a lot of similarities, the scenery, the dust storms, the blizzards, the rattlesnakes, but we’ve had over a hundred years of people taming the prairie that Jim and Antonia’s families didn’t have. They were the ones to break the sod and lead the way for modern Nebraskans.
April 30, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Sadly, I found myself at a disadvantage when it came to this story and the rest of the class. Apparently, a large percentage of the class was required to read this in High School … me? I had never heard of it. “Little House on the Prairie” is probably the closest thing I can thing to compare to it. Anyway, I do believe there is a flavor of nostalgia to the story line, but not much in the beginning. I think this mostly because the length of the first book; the length alone shows his love for his childhood home and his remembrance and long for it. Yet, that isn’t the only pointer of nostalgia. In fact, I think it’s over the expansion of all the novels. What I’m referencing too is the end, when he returns to Nebraska to speak to Antonia.
May 1, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Reading Jim’s experience of living on a farm is something I can relate to, growing up on a farm myself. I didn’t experience a lot of things like they did while I was growing up on a farm, thank God. However, I wasn’t much of an outdoors kid growing up, and didn’t help my dad out a lot with farming or ranching. If I had been out in the elements I would probably think growing up on a farm is harder than what I think now. Everyone in the situation has their own biased opinion, and most of the readers will sympathasize with the characters, reading about the hardships they went through.
May 2, 2008 at 9:01 am
My Antonia may be about living in the rural Midwest, but I understood the novel as being deeper than just the aesthetic of an open prairie. I think calling Cather a lesbian is kind of pushing it. The story would be entirely different if it was written by a man, and just because a woman is conveying the relationship between a boy and his friend does not mean that she secretly wants to make fish salad. The section I enjoyed most in the novel was the first; I enjoyed the nostalgia of a young child. I think that the novel was well written and evoked emotions worthy of its content. I was at the library when I read about Antonia’s father dying, and starting crying, right there on the second floor. I really enjoy reading things that have the power to tear you from mood to mood.
May 2, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think nostalgia plays a huge role during this novel with all of the characters. Reading it, you as the reader can’t help but think of your past. I will look back at my childhood and remember it as being simple and carefree. I think you also have to consider that your memory of something of the past might be a little wharped due to time. Good things form the past always seem to be better then they probably were at the time. Maybe this a half empty glass kind of thing on my part but I think you see Jim consistently going back because things seemed more pure and innocent compared to everyday reality.
May 2, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I think looking into the pioneer past of the midwest through this book gives people a light of what it really took to settle in this area and survive. most people think that since they live in the midwest that they know what it is like to rough it out on the prairie. when we have dust storms or blizzards we just go into our warm insulated houses and wait it out while in the days of the pioneers they had poorly insulated homes and wood for fire could be very scarce at times. I think this book looks into the nostalgia of not only of the west but of America.
May 2, 2008 at 4:05 pm
My Antonia was a great example of how memory works. Early on in the story Jim couldn’t believe that Antonia was proud to be able to work as hard as her brother. But as he remembers the “old days” he is nostalgic. He only remembers the good times, He was proud of the girls for being such hard workers. This is how memories work. When people think back on their past they have these feelings of nostalgia for what used to be. Even if they hated what had happened once it is the past they have only good feelings toward it. This story also showed a great deal of what it is really like to live in the midwest. It showed the difficulties of living on the prairie but also how great it was to succeed and actually survive out here.
May 3, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I think it’s interesting to see how Cather uses memory in this novel to tell the story. It is intriguing to me because the story is completely one sided, as one person remembers it, we (the readers) don’t get a sense for what Antonia was truly thinking nor what provoked her actions.