“Great” is a word that you have most likely heard very often in your lifetime. You may have heard a teacher tell you that you have done a “great job!” on your homework assignment, or have been told that you are destined to do something great with your life. You might have even asked yourself questions such as, “what makes a great leader?” or “what makes art great?” In this case, I have come to ask myself what the greatest work of American literature is. Each person has their own idea of what great is and no single work of literature will ever be critiqued exactly the same by everyone who reads it. To me, a great work of literature is one that is able to relate to a person in one form or another. A Nigerian novelist by the name of Chinua Achebe …show more content…
This novel is recognized as one of her greatest works and as one of the best American novels. My Antonia is a beautiful story that truly captures life in the Midwest and that allows for us, the readers, to see how people during that time and in that place might have lived. Willa Cather’s novel, My Antonia, was first published in 1918 and was translated the following year to Swedish. Since then, it has been translated 83 times. My Antonia is widely known as a classic novel about the American immigrant experience. It is a story about a Bohemian immigrant who, along with her family, moves to America to pursue a better life. Antonia and her family leave behind their home—a place that gave them a sense of comfort—to a Nebraskan prairie that is unknown to them. Her family sacrificed everything for a better future in a country that was foreign to them. As a family, they faced a great deal of challenges, but Willa Cather demonstrates the characters’ courage and strength through the eyes of Antonia’s childhood friend, Jim Burden. Throughout the novel, we get to see that Antonia, and all the other characters who are faced with challenges, are able to make of the best of their situation. Willa Cather writes in such a unique way; it
William Cather showed a great amount of information about the "old wild west" and the expansion of the United States. In My Antonia, Jim Burden told a story of his childhood, the people in his life, and the struggles he and his surroundings faced during this time.
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.
Rosowski, Susan J., ed. Approaches to Teaching Cather's My Antonia. New York: The Modern Language Association of America. 1989.
Wells, Kim. "My Antonia: A Survey of Critical Attitudes." August 23, 1999. Online Internet. November 4, 1998.
...n American Literature. By Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 387-452. Print.
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.
“A plump, fair skinned girl was standing in the doorway. She looked demure and pretty, and made a graceful picture in her blue cashmere dress and little blue hat, with a plaid shawl neatly about her shoulders and a clumsy pocket book in her hand.” This is the first glimpse of the transformation from girl to successful woman of Lena Lingard in My Antonia, by Willa Cather. In the beginning of the book, Lena is portrayed as a struggling dressmaker, who because of her personality, goals, and motivation, becomes a successful individual.
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.
In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, immigrants face conflict with their respective communities. The difference between values and norms of the immigrants and society are highly emphasized throughout the novel. In My Antonia, Antonia and Lena suffer the most hardships amongst immigrants because they are judged harshly for their actions. The novel focuses on three immigrant teens: Jim, Antonia and Lena. Cather establishes reverse gender roles within the novel. Jim has the privilege of getting an education and never having to work due to having successful grandparents. In contrast, Lena and Antonia come from poor families in which they must perform physical labor and take care of their families, typically the norms of men. Although Lena is confronted with reverse gender roles and disapproval by her community, she eventually finds
The warm blackness of summer nights, settling over your lawn and drifting down familiar street signs, over coffee shops closed for the night and broken down asphalt. Dust, collecting on creaking wooden floorboards and swirling through age-old sunlight. A song forgotten, notes away from your ears. Nostalgia is an emotion that all human beings experience and know well. Willa Cather expands on this fact, infusing her award-winning novel, My Ántonia, with sentimentalism and melancholy. Cather tells a tale of home, drawing from the idealistic “American dream” that all Americans know well. Jim Burden, a young orphan, moves to the countryside, spending his days watching men work in the dusty fields and find community amongst themselves. He adores
In the novel, My Antonia, by Willa Cather, society seems to govern the lives of many people. But for the others, who see past society's stereotypical values, had enough strength to overcome this and allowed them to achieve their dreams. Throughout the book, everyone seems to be trying to pursue the American Dream. While they all have different ideas of just exactly what the American Dream is, they all know precisely what they want. For some, the American Dream sounds so enticing that they have traveled across the world to achieve their goal.
Cather mends a special relationship between Jim and Antonia that is formed and broken throughout her novel My Antonia. The two characters meet at young age and begin to develop a ------- friendship. Jim teaches Antonia the language and culture of America while Antonia shares her culture and morals. Soon their respective friendship turns into a brother-sister relationship, an ardent love but not intimate.
Throughout my Junior year I have come across many pieces of American literature. When the question of “What makes American literature American?” Is asked, my answer is that the ideals and virtues (both positive and negative) embedded within the writing is what makes it American. American literature consists of tales of hard work, of standing up for personal belief, of the American Dream, but also consist of our corrupt Judicial system, of our past struggles with one another in terms of race, of how the American Dream is possible through hard work but that work might not always be considered “right.” The Americanality of American literature is not determined by the author of the piece, but of the morals that shine through in the piece.
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.
Mrs. Marian Forrester strikes readers as an appealing character with the way she shifts as a person from the start of the novel, A Lost Lady, to the end of it. She signifies just more than a women that is married to an old man who has worked in the train business. She innovated a new type of women that has transitioned from the old world to new world. She is sought out to be a caring, vibrant, graceful, and kind young lady but then shifts into a gold-digging, adulterous, deceitful lady from the way she is interpreted throughout the book through the eyes of Niel Herbert. The way that the reader is able to construe the Willa Cather on how Mr. and Mrs. Forrester fell in love is a concept that leads the reader to believe that it is merely psychological based. As Mrs. Forrester goes through her experiences such as the death of her husband, the affairs that she took part in with Frank Ellinger, and so on, the reader witnesses a shift in her mentally and internally. Mrs. Forrester becomes a much more complicated women to the extent in which she struggles to find who really is and that is a women that wants to find love and be fructuous in wealth. A women of a multitude of blemishes, as a leading character it can be argued that Mrs. Forrester signifies a lady that is ultimately lost in her path of personal transitioning. She becomes lost because she cannot withstand herself unless she is treated well by a wealthy male in which causes her to act unalike the person she truly is.