Examples Of Ambiguity In My Antonia

*The Ambiguity of Willa Cather Making the Main Character a Man In My Antonia” Ambiguity is the dimension of a text (idea, characterization, perspective, etc.) that can be described as a puzzle, as something strange or curious — a point of interpretative confusion, a problem.There are many subtle ambiguities in Willa Cather’s novel My Antonia, what will be concentrated on in this paper will be on Cather’s use of a male narrator and how the author chooses to describe the main female character. The female that will be focused on is Antonia.Antonia is described as wearing the clothing of a man, "After the winter begun she wore a man's long overcoat and boots, and a man's felt hat with a wide brim.” (203), the quote highlights the ambiguity of Cather’s description of a female wearing a man’s clothes which is uncharacteristic due to Antonia being a female;this is part of Cather’s agenda. Subtle ambiguities like these are throughout the text. The way in which Cather describes Antonia makes the reader question Jim Burden’s true feelings and what Cather is attempting to accomplish as a female writer during the early 1900s. Willa Cather, purposely chose to make the narrator of the novel a man. Cather allows herself to insert the portrayal of feminist qualities to females in the book through the book being from the

”Ambrousch hired his sister out like a man, and she went from farm to farm, binding sheaves or working with the threshers. The farmers liked her and were kind to her, said they would rather have her for a hand than Ambrousch" (95). The use of Antonia as a worker by Ambrosch spurs the development of her independence as a female. Field work leads Antonia to strengthen muscles that Jim characterizes as the muscles of a man. The muscles that were developed by Antonia are a metaphor for Antonia leaving societal