In Willa Cather’s novel My Ántonia, Cather uses the theme of the natural world to further expand on the persona of the character, Jim Burden, and his romantic outlook on life. Jim shows a strong bond to nature as it brings back his idyllic childhood memories and the feelings of absolute bliss he had. By connecting the theme of nature to his childhood Jim presents the idea that he feels dissatisfied as an adult in the city and misses his life on the farm where he was in union with nature. Moreover, Jim links Ántonia, the most important person from his childhood, to the idea of nature. He recognizes that the familiar feeling of utter happiness brought to him by nature is also brought to him by Ántonia; therefore, his memories of Ántonia coincide …show more content…
Jim shows a respect for nature and a complete unity in nature that highlights his romantic view of the world. In his grandmother’s garden Jim describes himself as “something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and [he] did not want to be anything more [and he] was entirely happy” (14). Jim displays a perfect union with nature, an understanding brought about by his romantic perspectives of life. His romanticism is further emphasized in the way he highlights nature’s beauty and finds a deeper meaning to nature. In an account from his memoir, Jim recalls the view of the prairie in autumn afternoon the, “miles of copper-red grass . . . drenched in sunlight . . . stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day . . .the hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero’s death - heroes who died young and gloriously” (28). His use of comparing the fiery prairie to the excitement of a hero’s death after a victorious battle shows his ability to evoke emotion out of nature and see a deeper meaning to the natural world around him. Moreover, Jim describes a scene of a plough in a sunset as “magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun . . . it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun” (156). Jim’s description of the plough …show more content…
The tragic events that happened in the winter leads Jim believe that “the pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify – it was like the light of the truth itself . . . all those frivolities of summer . . . were lies, and this is what was underneath” (111). Jim experiences the most loss and sadness in the harsh conditions of winter; therefore, Jim perceives that winter reveals the realities of life and death in the world. Additionally, he believes that the beauty of nature brought by the warm weather masks the truth of life in the summer as nature thrives in these conditions and perishes in the cold winters. Cather also connects the growth of Jim as a character to the growth the Nebraskan farmlands. During Jim’s arrival at Nebraska he sees empty fields “everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but rough, shaggy, red grass” (12). The empty land helps represent Jim’s brand new adventure on the farmland and develops another significant role nature plays in the novel. As Jim grows in his identity, the farmland was also growing and it was now “broken up into wheat fields and cornfields, the red grass was disappearing, and the whole face of the country was changing” (197). The empty plain that represents Jim’s new adventure now changed into a great
She is very close to her father so this impacts her deeply. She feels the need to step up and care for her family. This turns Antonia into a very hard worker. She begins working with Ambrosch, her brother, by plowing the fields. She takes on the responsibilities of a man. This makes her stop going to school. This worries Jim until he finds out that Antonia is actually very hurt by the event of her father dying. Antonia cries in secret and longs to go to school.
In the beginning of the novel, Jim had a family but was soon abandoned by them do to both of their deaths. He was then on his way to his grandparents house in Nebraska to begin a new and different life. At this point, he began a union with both his grandparents as well as 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.
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
Theme of Sacrifice in My Antonia and The Song of the Lark. A common trait for Willa Cather's characters is that they possess a certain talent or skill. This art usually controls the lives of these characters. According to critic Maxell Geismar, Cather's heroines who possess a skill often either do not marry or marry men whom they dominate; if they do marry the marriage is without excitement because their passion is invested in their art.
Dreams are nothing but our innermost desires. We are made to pursue these dreams and have them be the driving force in all we do. Jim Burden is no different; like everyone, he has dreams, and he does his best to pursue them and fulfill them. Or does he? Jim writes the story of Antonia through his own life. He is plagued with the disease of romanticism. He cannot move on; though time will move, Jim's thoughts and emotions are rooted in the past. Frances Harling said it right when she said, "the trouble with you, Jim, is that you're romantic." Jim is a romantic, a dreamer who never acts. Many things contribute to Jim's romanticism, his experiences, his emotions, and his actions; however as no one could suspect, it helped him mature and appreciate loves lost.
William Faulkner overwhelms his audience with the visual perceptions that the characters experience, making the reader feel utterly attached to nature and using imagery how a human out of despair can make accusations. "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into a not-fish now. I can hear the bed and her face and them and I can...
The novel uses immigrant labor to form its foundation for the story and then recounts personal memories from Jim’s life about the immigrants to show the hardships they face coming into a new world for the first time.
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.
The landscape and the environment in Willa Cather's, My Ántonia, plays several roles. It creates both a character and protagonist, while it also reflects Cather's main characters, Jim and Ántonia, as well as forming the structure of the novel. Additionally, it evokes several themes that existed on the prairie during the time in which the story takes place. Some of these themes that directly relate to the novel, which are worth exploring, are endurance, hardship, and spirituality. Additionally, the symbolism of the "hot and cold" climate will be examined, revealing the significance it has on the novel in an overall manner. The analyses will further explain Cather's construction of the novel, which is based on three cycles: the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life and physical development and lastly, the cultural cycle.
The setting of the story has tremendous impact on the characters and themes in the novel "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Cather's delicately crafted naturalistic style is evident not only in her colorfully detailed depictions of the Nebraska frontier, but also in her characters’ relationship with the land on which they live. The common naturalist theme of man being controlled by nature appears many times throughout the novel, particularly in the chapters containing the first winter.
Emily Dickinson, a transcendentalist author, demonstrates how settings away from society and technology are representations for virtue and individuality. In her poem Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church she writes about how she stays home on Sundays saying, “I keep it, staying at Home/–With a Bobolink for a Chorister/–And an Orchard, for a Dome” (Some Keep the Sabbath going to Church). Dickinson uses objects of nature such as birds and flowers to convey that she loves nature so much she stays away from society. She basks in her natural haven far from a massive stone cathedral and an orthodox way of life. She is at peace in nature but more importantly she follows her own beliefs and ideas, exhibiting her independence. In Ken Kesey’s writing, one such example of a character who prospers greatly in nature is Billy Bibbit, the stuttering patient from Nurse Ratched’s ward. Throughout the first half of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bibbit fails to show any genuine feelings other than fear due to the immense control the nurse has over his life. However, he finds courage on the expansive open ocean. When on the boat trip there is “a fuss as to who'd be the three that braved that [storm] without [life]jackets... Everybody was kind of surprised [when] Billy...volunteered...and helped the girl right into [his]” (252). Bibbit acts like a hero on the stormy seas, a far different
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
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.