Gender Roles In My Antonia

My Antonia Narrative: Individual and Community In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, immigrants face conflict with their respective communities. The difference between values and norms of the immigrants and society are highly emphasized throughout the novel. In My Antonia, Antonia and Lena suffer the most hardships amongst immigrants because they are judged harshly for their actions. The novel focuses on three immigrant teens: Jim, Antonia and Lena. Cather establishes reverse gender roles within the novel. Jim has the privilege of getting an education and never having to work due to having successful grandparents. In contrast, Lena and Antonia come from poor families in which they must perform physical labor and take care of their families, typically the norms of men. Although Lena is confronted with reverse gender roles and disapproval by her community, she eventually finds

Although Lena encounters hardships of disapproval from her reversal of stereotypical gender roles in the beginning of the novel, she finds a place of belonging in her society as a fashion designer towards the end. Throughout the novel, other women do not approve of Lena or how she lives her life. However, when Jim visits Lena at work, he observes her interactions with her female customers. She shows great customer service, and the clients say that she “has style” (193). Cather illustrates to the readers that Lena has eventually found her place in society. Lena is an independent business woman who embodies strength and establishes that in her response to Jim’s concerns about her relationship with Pole. She states that “Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones… I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody” (200). Instead of focusing on her relationship with men, Lena soon becomes a successful dressmaker in