Character Evolution in My Antonia

672 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: My cultural story essay

87% on paperrater
The author, Willa Cather, wrote,“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm,” the characters in My Antonia are dynamic as they change and grow over the course of the book. The characters live very different lives and have very different experiences while all living in the same small patch of rural land in the new state of Nebraska. Willa Cather’s My Antonia tells a story of Antonia Shimerda’s life after she and her family immigrate to the United States and on to Nebraska from Bohemia; her story is told through the eyes of her friend, Jim Burden.
The story begins an adult Jim, one of the main characters reminisces with an old friend about their time together in Nebraska with their mutual friend, Antonia. They plan to each write their personal memories of their childhood with their friend, Antonia. My Antonia is told through the eyes of Jim as he remembers his and Antonia’s childhoods.
As the book opens, Jim is ten years and recently orphaned; he begins a …show more content…

With this I can relate since where I come from the winters are brutal and often seem to relate to calamity. However, once you pass the numb fingers, frostbit ears, near-hypothermia, and overall severity of the storm, you can notice just how beautiful and halcyon the land looks. Around here, winters can be unkind to people and the land, but like the winter of the story it truly is beautiful to see. In conclusion, My Antonia is a story of how a friendship builds between Antonia and Jim through the narrator Jim’s eyes. Throughout the story Antonia’s English and Jim’s knowledge of Antonia’s culture, both improve and grow. Along with this, these two characters’ friendship grows in extreme ways. In relation to where I live, the land and weather of this story are both easy to compare. Overall, this story was incredibly impacting and easy to relate to my own life and

Show More
Related

  • How Does Mr Shimerda's Death Affect My Antonia

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Special Bond In Willa Cather's My Antonia

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Success in Willa Cather's My Antonia

    2593 Words  | 6 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Define Normal Book Talk

    435 Words  | 1 Pages

    Antonia's mom smokes and she has been really sick lately. Her mom is the antagonist in this story because she can't even get out of bed unless she feels good. Since her mom has been sick, Antonia has to take care of everything around the house, including her brother. So one day Antonia was at a friend's house and her mom and brother decided to go on a picnic and when they were done she took her son to a motel, and then left to go to a bar down the road.

    Read More

  • Jim Burden's Romanticism in My Antonia

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Personal Memories In My Antonia

    1449 Words  | 3 Pages

    My Ántonia brings together the life of a young boy and young Bohemian female in the old prairie. The book details this hardships and memories together as they grow older and their lives change in the ever-different worlds. The one thing that keeps them close through all of the turmoil is their personal memories. Neither Jim or Ántonia ever recall large historical events though but rather only the ir personal memories which keeps them closer than they think if when they are separated for long periods of time through the novel.

    Read More

  • My Antonia Essay: Jim Burden

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Ellen Foster

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    A breathtaking saga of a young girl’s tragic memories of her childhood. As with Ellen, Gibbons’ parents both died before she was twelve-years-old, forming the family. basis of the plot and themes of this novel. The fond memories she possessed of her mother and the harsh ones of her father are reflected in the thoughts and actions of Ellen. The simplistic and humble attitude that both Gibbons and Ellen epitomizes in the novel is portrayed through diction and dialogue.

    Read More

  • My Antonia

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book, "My Antonia", nostalgic views can be compared to those from narratives of Indians personal experiences. The experience that can be compared is the relation that they had regarding the westward movement and the plans the Americans had for the different races. The hardships they had experienced had been uncomfortable and unfair. The Indians had it harder than the immigrants, because they were moved from their own homes and sent to reservations and their kids were taken to the east to learn to become white. The immigrants came to the west expected great opportunities. They experienced hardships which involved new culture, religion, and the racist ways of the white men. Although these images can be compared to hardships they had the Indians had a more difficult outcome to experience.

    Read More

  • My Antonia Essay: Theme of Separation

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Use of Environment, Landscape, and Cycles in My Antonia

    3299 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • My Antonia Essay: Weak Structure and Powerful Drama

    1813 Words  | 4 Pages

    Much of the earliest criticism of My Antonia focuses on the apparent failure of the narrative. Many critics take the title of the story and its introduction at face value. When the story says it is to be about Ántonia, it must be about her! Therefore, many critics see the stunningly crafted pieces of "variation from a theme" -- the stories of Peter & Pavel (the Russians and their wolves) and the sections of the novel dealing with the hired girls Lena Lingard and others-- as divergences which weaken the overall structure of the novel. In other words, these stories distract us from the real story, that of Ántonia and her relationship with Jim. Other critics talk mostly about the landscape of Cather's stories, the way the pioneer story and the struggle with nature is a vital piece of her work. This is partly why, I think, Cather has been viewed as a minor writer of "local color" for so long. Because she sketches her landscapes with such simplicity and yet detail, many critics do not look past the landscape to see the characters and the true drama that they play out.

    Read More

  • Friendship Relationship Between Jim And Antonia's Friendship

    888 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sitting in his room at night, writing about her, must have taken a major part of his day out, but he believed it was worthy enough of his busy life as a lawyer. In Antonia’s life, Jim was just her best friend, which she had no other feelings about. She was oblivious to Jim’s interests in her. IF the two of them confronted each other and expressed their feelings either they would have stayed friends after, or Antonia would have lived her life with Jim. Jim would have liked the second one, and Antonia would have, most likely, preferred to stay friends. Though WIlla Cather does not allow for Antonia to tell the reader her feelings on the inside, it is concluded that Antonia did not express the same feelings for Jim. If she did, she might have wrote letters to Jim, or visited him. Because of their different opinions on their friendship, Jim and Antonia’s relationship stayed as a

    Read More

  • Theme Of Nostalgia In My Antonia

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • My Antonia Essay: The Role of Women

    2160 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Character Evolution in My Antonia

Open Document