The Role Of Gilded Age In Willa Cather's My Antonia

Through the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather, the Gilded Age can be seen as a period of change, rapid development, curiosity, as well as new physical and social territory. This is not what makes the novel interesting, as any textbook contains this information. More interesting in My Antonia is how the period is shown through the novel, the groups of people it chooses to focus on, and how it portrays these groups. Considered by many as a modernist novel, it chooses to show a lot through a little. From a time when powerful, Anglo-Saxon, male industrialists ruled, the novel shows a different side. Although seen through the eyes of a male protagonist, it is a novel mostly about women; immigrant women for that matter. The novel shows the economic

While Antonia could be considered more of a protagonist than Jim, the one thing he offers is this perspective of a flawed, judgmental, US born male. This is important in terms of how immigrant women were perceived during the Gilded Age. Jim often displays a lustful and judgmental attitude towards Antonia and her friends (p.152,153). It shows that even Jim, who we view as someone who is actually exposed and close with the girls views them this way. He shows his prejudice in other ways as well. When the Shimerdas do something that seems foreign or impolite, he rarely tries to think about things from their perspective (p.90). He chooses instead to revert back to the culture he knows, as most at the time would do. It shows how prejudice towards immigrants formed and functioned by showing real-time how the culture of US born people reacted to the influx of those from different cultural backgrounds. We get to see Jim grow from a young boy to a man, and how his feelings about the girls change over time; getting a step-by-step explanation of how his viewpoint is

Immigrants were willing to work for less, and do jobs that other people weren’t interested in. One never sees any non-immigrants as “hired girls”. This highlights a much larger change in the US during the Gilded Age. Immigrants were the lifeblood that fueled US industrial growth during the period. Although they are not working in the steel mills of Pittsburg, the women in the novel are able to display the strange societal complex that was placed on new immigrants. On one hand, these women are a vital part of the community’s workforce; on the other, they are persecuted for factors they can’t control, and are forced to constantly live a life full of risks. This complex was almost universal for immigrants in the Gilded Age, who most likely were just trying to create a comfortable life for their families. The uncontrollable factors around them, their own cultures, and intense economic pressures create a set of challenges that are difficult to