My Antonia LitChart
My Antonia LitChart
My Antonia LitChart
My Antonia
• Genre: Fiction
INTR
INTRO
O • Setting: Black Hawk, Nebraska in the 1880s
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF WILLA CATHER • Climax: When Ántonia starts attending the town dances, she
asserts her independence by quitting her job with the Harlings
Willa Cather was born into a large farming family in rural and isolates herself from the Harlings and the Burdens.
Virginia. In 1883, when Cather was ten years old, her family
• Antagonist: Ántonia. Although not a typical antagonist, her
relocated to Red Cloud, Nebraska. She attended the University
separation from Jim influences the course of his life. Minor
of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she paid her way by working for antagonists: Wick Cutter; the winter.
the Nebraska State Journal, and later moved to Pittsburgh to
• Point of View: First person
teach high school English. In 1906 she moved to New York City
to work for McClure's Magazine, but began to write full-time in
1912. In her lifetime, Cather published 12 novels and many EXTRA CREDIT
short stories, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for Prairie Life: My Ántonia, the last of Cather's "prairie trilogy" of
her novel One of Ours. A fiercely private person, Cather never novels, is heavily autobiographical. Like Cather, Jim moves from
married. Her most significant relationships were with women, Virginia to Nebraska at the age of ten, to a place heavily
most notably the editor Edith Lewis, with whom she lived in populated by Eastern European immigrants. The fictional Black
New York City from 1912 until her death in 1947. Hawk, with its sod houses and bee bush, is largely based on Red
Cloud, the Nebraska town where Cather lived. Throughout her
HISTORICAL CONTEXT life, Cather felt a great homesickness for her childhood years in
Nebraska. Memories of the West fueled her writing
When My Ántonia was published, its story of American prairie
throughout her career.
life captured the imagination of an American public that was
exhausted by Word War I. Cather's readers looked to literature
Willa the Tomboy: As a college student, Cather dressed as a
as an escape from wartime politics and were proud of the
tomboy and sometimes used the name "William." Most of her
United States' new post-war position as a global power. My
novels are written from the point of view of a male character.
Ántonia also appealed to progressives who were interested in
Though she never declared her sexual orientation, it has been a
social and economic issues because the novel explored
topic of debate among scholars.
women's strength and adaptability, and also brought attention
to the hardships of immigrant life in the United States.
PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY
RELATED LITERARY WORKS
In the late 1880s, recently orphaned Jim Burden leaves his
In the early 20th century, writers were concerned about the
growing industrialization of American society. They felt a sense home in Virginia to live with his grandparents in rural
of disillusionment and a nostalgia for simpler days. My Ántonia, Nebraska. On the same train is 13-year-old Ántonia Shimerda,
an immigrant from Bohemia, whose family is buying the land
set in rural Nebraska, captures this longing, and can be
next to the Burdens. Ten-year-old Jim feels immediately at
compared to such works as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,
home on the prairie. He quickly settles into his new life with
Ohio (1919), Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie
Jake Marpole and Otto Fuchs, the farm hands, and his loving
(1935) and Sinclair Lewis' Main Street (1920). All of these works
grandparents.
explore the mainstream desire of the time to abandon the city
and live a more wholesome life out West in a small town. The Burdens soon befriend the Shimerda family, and Jim and
Ántonia bond over their love of the land. Ántonia learns English
eagerly under Jim’s tutelage, although her parents are more
KEY FACTS
hesitant to adapt to American life. Mr. Shimerda, frail and
• Full Title: My Ántonia (pronounced with the accent on the first homesick, finds the adjustment to farm life especially difficult.
syllable) His one solace is his friendship with Pavel and Peter, Russian
• When Written: 1916–1918 farmers whose language is similar to the Shimerdas’. But when
• Where Written: New York City Pavel dies suddenly, Peter leaves to find a job in railway
construction. Mr. Shimerda, having lost his one outside
• When Published: 1918
connection to his native culture, sinks into loneliness and
• Literary Period: Modernism depression. He is unable to provide properly for his family.
"Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to
BOOK 1, CHAPTER 7 QUOTES be like Ambrosch?"
This was enough for Ántonia. She liked me better from that
time on, and she never took a supercilious air with me again. I She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the
had killed a big snake – I was now a big fellow. sky. "If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy
for you. But they will be hard for us."
•Speak
•Speaker
er: Jim Burden
•Mentioned or related char
characters
acters: Ántonia Shimerda •Speak
•Speaker
er: Jim Burden, Ántonia Shimerda
•Related themes
themes: Friendship, Innocence and Maturity, Gender •Mentioned or related char
characters
acters: Ambrosch Shimerda
•Theme T
Trrack
acker
er code
code: •Related themes
themes: The Immigrant Experience, Friendship, The
Prairie, Innocence and Maturity
2 5 6 •Theme T
Trrack
acker
er code
code:
BOOK 1, CHAPTER 9
Winter arrives, beautiful but Ántonia and Yulka's lack of warm
bitterly cold. After the first clothes is a sign of their poverty
snowfall, Jim rides to the and suggests they will have a
Shimerdas' house on a sleigh difficult winter.
Otto has built for him. He
takes Ántonia and Yulka on a 1 3
ride, but they become very
cold because they do not have
warm enough clothes. Jim
lends them some of his
clothing.
The only break in the long The discovery of the girls dancing
winter occurs in March, when is their debut as grown women in BOOK 2, CHAPTER 9
Blind d'Arnault, a Negro the town. No longer just girls, Jim notices how all the young Jim's liberal views on equality
pianist, comes to Black Hawk. now they dance with men, a men are attracted to the hired between the classes are
The townspeople gather at the metaphor for their social and immigrant girls, who continue progressive, ahead of his time.
Boys' Home hotel to listen. sexual maturity. This is also the to dance every night. Jim His ideas are supported by future
The scene is electric, and at first time Jim sees Ántonia with thinks the sacrifices and events, as the immigrants earn
one point d'Arnault senses the Lena and Tiny. Just as Jim had to struggles the girls have had to their success through hard work
tapping of dancing feet in a make new friends among his endure make them more while the "refined" and privileged
room next to the parlor where peers when he moved into town, beautiful and energetic than upper class works less diligently
he is playing. The door Ántonia has made friends with the "refined" town girls. Jim, and lose their power.
between the two rooms is the other "hired girls" (immigrant looking back as an adult,
opened, revealing Ántonia, girls hired to work for wealthier, observes that the immigrants' 1 5 6
Lena and Tiny dancing to the established families). work ethic has in fact made
music. Though at first the girls them the most prosperous
are shocked to be discovered, 2 5 6 families in the area.
the men in the hall convince The brief anecdote of Sylvester
Sylvester Lovett, the son of a
the girls to come in and dance and Lena shows that despite the
banker, becomes infatuated
with them. dances, prejudice against the
with Lena. Jim hopes that if
Sylvester marries Lena it will poorer immigrant classes still
help rid the townspeople of exists in Black Hawk. Though he
their prejudices toward the loves Lena, Sylvester is too
immigrants. But when embarrassed to marry her
Sylvester's infatuation causes because she's an immigrant.
him to slip up at work, he
decides to marry a well-to-do 1 6
widow in town instead. Jim is
furious at him.
BOOK 5, CHAPTER 3
Jim leaves Ántonia's farm the Through Ántonia and her family,
next day, promising to return Jim has reconnected with the
soon to visit Ántonia, Cuzak, prairie—not the prairie of his
and their children, and then to youth but the living prairie of the
return regularly after that to present.
hunt with them and just to
"tramp around." 2 3 4 5