A Landscape of Emotions Being consumed by one’s surroundings results in an impressionable experience. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, admiring a breathtaking view, and watching the sizzling sunset evoke emotions. Willa Cather effectively evokes emotions in the reader, in order to relate to the characters’ feelings, by providing vivid descriptions of the setting, as well as through the reactions of Jim. From the start of the novel to the very end, descriptions of the Jim’s environment reflect his feelings. Jim, being sent away, comments: I do not remember crossing the Missouri River, or anything about the long day’s journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed so many rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still all day long, Nebraska. (Cather, 10) Immediately, Jim’s detachment to his surroundings suggest his loneliness. The “dull” sights and the “long” journey also imply that Jim has been through many hardships after losing his parents. The absence of a home, in addition to his uncertainty, Jim continues to ignore his environment. There was nothing but land: not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made... I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never before looked up and at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge ag...
The most important thing any writer can do is to give their characters a feel of
Antonia and Jim of My 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. Starting at a young age, the main characters lives are intertwined. They form a special bond, which have both positive and negative affects on their relationship.
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
...ng a lonesome and bland life, when I can shape my future now and become the man I want to be. Although Destiny has already laid out my path, I will grow as Jim did and realize that the power of the individual and Destiny can work together only if you believe in it. Jim learned this lesson too late, and paid the price of misery and living forever thriving off of his memories.
character, hyperbole, a dramatic setting, imagery and a huge tragedy in order to display the
When Willa Cather wrote her novel My Antonia in 1918, there probably was not any doubt that it was the story of a woman's accomplishment. However, today there have been many critics that claim this work to be the legacy of a girl's struggle, not triumph. This perception can easily be argued. This leaves readers with the choice of interpreting the book as enlightening or depressing.
The case study of “What should we do with Jim?” has been read and a set amount of questions has been asked about the reading, which will be answered by the following:
Jim is also on the run at the time for his own freedom and the pair make quite a team throughout the novel.
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.
...g and appreciation of qualities of characters, and hence, a deeper understanding of underlying motives and psyche. Intricate and methodical characterization is crucial to grasp the full meaning of a narrative.
When even that fails, Jim's life becomes a simple battle for survival, first of all in Shanghai and then at the hands of the Japanese in a staging camp, where he is effectively sent to die. The second part of the novel moves on three years to the internment camp where Jim has spent the war. It is the middle of 1945, and the novel tells of the last days of the camp as the rations run out and the Japanese realise that they are about to lose the war. The fascination here is to watch how the people behave as the war reaches its inevitable conclusion: seeing who keeps going and who gives up. The second part ends with a "death march" as the Japanese move the exhausted and starving prisoners out the camp and march them towards Shanghai.
In one of the scenes, Jim is caught between trying to prove his masculinity or staying home and being the good son that his parents have yearned for. He struggles emotionally and physically, mainly because his parents do not live up to society’s expectations of
Jim perceive the past with nostalgia, through nature, symbols, and Antonia. As the narrator in My Antonia, Jim presents a loving and affectionate mood towards his family, the immigrants and nature, which convinces the reader that this novel is a romance, one between Jim and life. Jim sees through the lens of nostalgia; the eyes that can see to the past through all of the components discussed. Life is memory, so live every second of every memory to its highest potential.
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.
Upon overhearing that Miss Watson was planning on selling him to a new owner in New Orlans, Jim runs away from what was a content lifestyle. Jim provides friendship and in some way mentoring to Huck as he escapes his master and goes along with Huck in hopes of permanently getting out of his shackle of slavery and live peacefully with his wife and kids. Huck describes his reactions; “"Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom" (Twain 97). He is sometimes given the chance to make his own decisions, but in certain conditions, he experienced misfortune from his choices. Being a slave capitalist and sold through the livestock, Jim possesses some unique knowledge of the country’s stock market. However, he ends up losing what little amounts of cash he earned when his so-called bank goes bankrupt. He portrays his disappointment; ”I owns myself, en I 's wuth eight hund 'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn ' want no mo” (Twain 73). In another event that shows Jim’s rise from slave like actions are when Huck and Tom are playing a joke on him while he is sleeping. They silently put his hat in a tree so Jim would wake believing that "witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees