In the novel “My Antonia,” rattlesnakes represent an immovable foe. Throughout the novel Jim restates that they must be on the lookout for rattlesnakes. One symbolic element of the rattlesnake is the character Peter Krajiek. He is even compared to a rattlesnake by Jim. Following the Shimerdas' move to the prairie, Krajiek acts as a parasite to the Shimerdas' homestead. He stays in their barn and eats their food, much like the rattlesnake eats owls' eggs and prairie dog young, all while living in their underground tunnels. Jim concludes, “They kept him in their hole and fed him for the same reason that the prairie-dogs and the brown owls house the rattlesnakes—because they did not know how to get rid of him.” Another symbolic element associated with the rattlesnake is Jim becoming an equal in Antonia's eyes. Because the rattlesnake is seen as a villain that cannot be eradicated from the prairie, Antonia sees it as an act of absolute heroism when Jim kills the, “circus monstrosity.” …show more content…
Jim does not speak of winter with the same reverence as he does of the conditions the rest of the year. Russian Pavel and Russian Peter feed the bride to the wolves in the winter. The story of this event is told on the night that wolves on the prairie howl to indicate winter is on its way. Pavel dies shortly after revealing this past transgression and Peter leaves the prairie after his friend dies. Jim indicates that, “the loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old Mr. Shimerda.” During the same winter, Mr. Shimerda commits suicide, leaving his family to fend for
As Jim attends school with other children of his social stature, Antonia is forced to manually work in the fields. A division between the two characters is immediately created. Antonia develops resentment towards Jim; "I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now. My mother can't say no more Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him.
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
The effect the reader perceives in the passage of Rattler is attained from the usage of the author¡¯s imagery. The author describes the pre-action of the battle between the man and the snake as a ¡°furious signal, quite sportingly warning [the man] that [he] had made an unprovoked attack, attempted to take [the snake¡¯s] life... ¡± The warning signal is portrayed in order to reveal the significance of both the man¡¯s and the snake¡¯s value of life. The author sets an image of how one of their lives must end in order to keep the world in peace. In addition, the author describes how ¡°there was blood in [snake¡¯s] mouth and poison dripping from his fangs; it was all a nasty sight, pitiful now that it was done.¡± This bloody image of snake¡¯s impending death shows the significance of the man¡¯s acceptance toward the snake. In a sense, the reader can interpret the man¡¯s sympathy toward the snake because of the possibility that he should have let him go instead of killing him.
He is apprehensive about seeing Antonia, fearing that she will no longer be the idealized person who exists in his memory. Jim is not let down when they meet, as even though she is now a “battered woman … but she still had that something that fires the imagination, could stop one’s breath for a moment” (226). Age has not dampened the spirit that Jim was drawn to throughout his youth and now his adulthood. He speaks about her through a lens of true love and respect, telling her children that he “couldn’t stand it if you boys were inconsiderate [towards Antonia] … I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there’s nobody like her” (222). Jim refers to Antonia as a “rich mine of life,” and it is clear that Antonia’s type of richness is more valuable in Jim’s eyes. Through her, he is able to realize that tangible fiscal wealth is far less precious than the impalpable beauty of emotional connection and
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.
Cather chooses to refer back to Jim’s past at the end of My Ántonia to emphasize how, even though the story ends, Jim will always remember Ántonia and their experiences together. Despite both of them growing up and leading very different lives, Ántonia and the recollection of his youth are so important to him that he still remembers the days of his childhood, travelling to a place he would call home.
Jim tries to model himself after a man who is crushed by the yoke of caring for his family. Since he has no paternal figure in his life, Jim is unable to decipher the emotional pain of Mr. Shimerda. At this point, Jim first starts to contemplate his romanticized view on life. The irony of this is when Mr. Shimerda promises to give Jim his gun after he becomes a real man. Antonia translates it into, “My tatinek say when you are big boy, he give you his gun” (Cather 32). Mr. Shimerda defines being a real man as being able to provide for your family, which he has been unable to do since they migrated to Nebraska. This causes a chain reaction in Jim and Antonia. Mr. Shimerda's death causes Jim and Antonia to sort of diverge paths with their decision making, and as Antonia begins to age. She takes on the parental role, or catalyst, that Jim needs to develop as a character.
“The Rattler” is a story that is written by Donald Beattie that expresses a survival and protective tone to persuade readers to side with the man that killed the snake in order to protect a larger community of animals and humans. Beattie is presenting the story to a large group of people in attempt to persuade them. Beattie uses imagery, simile, and pathos to develop a root of persuasion and convince the audience to reanalyze the man’s actions.
Willa Cather’s “My Antonia” is a collection of fictional memories loosely based off Cather’s own childhood. Throughout the novel young Jim Burden encounters several characters and befriends men and women alike, but two female characters become very close; Antonia Shimerda and Lena Lingard. Antonia and Lena both aid Jim throughout his life; one through childhood and the other through adulthood. While both characters have minor similarities, the differences between them are pronounced.
Willa Cather’s 1918 novel My Ántonia is often celebrated for its complimentary depiction of the immigrants that flocked to America at the turn of the twentieth century and hailed for its progressive approach to the ever-relevant immigrant debate. Despite the novel’s superficial benevolence towards foreigners, Janis Stout questions the authenticity of the book’s (and, by extension, Cather’s) kindnesses in her critical article “Coming to America/Escaping to Europe.” Stout argues that Cather’s ethnic characters (or lack thereof) reflect the popular, discriminatory views of her time, and extracts evidence from both the novel and the author’s personal life to buttress this claim. Stout’s criticism inspired my own interpretation-- that Cather’s treatment
The comparison of the rattlesnake to a bigger, more frightening, and yet less deadly creature makes the former seem dangerous. While a blacksnake would “flee at the sight of a man”, the rattler proved its fearlessness with the way he “held his ground”. The rattler is cocky, and for good reason, because his poison could kill the man much easier than the theoretical blacksnake could. The man is in a life-threatening situation and the reader is likely to sympathize with his fear and worry. The author uses violent diction when describing the snake to make us see him as a vicious creature, in need of killing to keep others safe. Even dead, the rattler “may still bite”. He needs to be kept as far as possible from people - especially vulnerable people, such as young children - in order to protect them. The author includes this hostile wording to bring awareness to the fact that the snake is remorseless, even in death, and that taking its life is noble and just. Finally, the snake’s “little song of death” is personified negatively by the man to show that the snake is the villain in the story. Life is, according to the rattlesnake, “dear and would be dearly sold”. It comes to light in this phrase that the snake is looking for revenge from the man’s actions. The rattler is not as innocent as he may have initially seemed. As he attempts at the man’s life to bring
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
Henri Rousseau, a French born-and-raised artist, was one of the first painters to set the standard for naïve art worldwide (Vallier, Dora). In fact, Rousseau’s artworks are “the most frequently reproduced examples” of naïve art, even in today’s age (Encyclopædia Britannica). His use of rich colors, employement of extensive detail, and subject matters - typically flourishing forests of a sub-tropical nature and exotic creatures - is what clearly separates Rousseau’s art from other artists of similar idealistic styles. (Vallier, Dora). Rousseau rose to fame because of his naïeveté and lack of formal art training, which lended itself to unique rendering in his works.
In her novel, My Antonia, Cather represents the frontier as a new nation. Blanche Gelfant notes that Cather "creat[ed] images of strong and resourceful women upon whom the fate of a new country depended" . This responsibility, along with the "economic productivity" Gilbert and Gubar cite (173), reinforces the sense that women hold a different place in this frontier community than they would in the more settled areas of America.
Hisssss! Hisssss! Boom!... is what most people hear right before a rattlesnake’s head is chopped off. Now here’s my question, do these innocent creatures that people fear for no absolute reason deserve to die? No one has the right to decide whether or not an animal lives or perishes. A rattlesnake roundup is an event usually hosted in Western parts of the United States like Texas where people slaughter thousands of defenseless rattlesnakes. In fact, these rattlesnakes are classified as defenseless because they have their fangs pulled out with special tools and their venom drained for “scientific research.” Rattlesnake roundups have been apart of Western culture for almost a century. Strangely enough,this traditional event moves on with families