Week 4: My Antonia

This week I started a new book called My Antonia by Willa Cather. I chose to read another book by her because I enjoyed her style of writing. I also enjoyed her setting and use of characters.

My Antonia begins with a speaker who is the nameless narrator.  The unknown speaker tells about a friend of his/hers named Jim Burden. The narrator and Jim were friends when they were kids, and they both knew a beautiful Bohemian immigrant girl named Antonia. The narrator tells Jim that he/she wants to write about Antonia, but feels that Jim, who knew the girl better, could help him/her gain more information and insight. So Jim writes about all of his memories about the girl that he can remember from their childhoods growing up together.

The story then goes back in time to Jim’s childhood. Jim is ten years old and has recently been orphaned, so he moves from Virginia to Nebraska to live with his grandparents on their farm. However, the story doesn't state how his parents died or how it makes Jim feels. On the train ride there, Jim is accompanied by a farmhand named Jake Marpole. He hears that an immigrant family from Bohemia is traveling to the same area. He wonders why anyone would want to travel to such a remote area. Soon after he arrives on his grandparents' farm, Jim meets the Shimerdas, the Bohemian immigrant family whom he encountered on the train ride to Nebraska. They turn out to be his grandparents' new closest neighbors. The family consists of Mr. Shimerda, who is a depressed slumped over man; Mrs. Shimerda, who made the family move to America; Ambrosch, who is a mean and selfish son; Antonia, who is two years older than Jim; and several other children.

When the family came to Nebraska they could speak very little English. However, Mr. Shimerda asks Jim, “Teach my Antonia to speak language.”  In the process, the two children soon become close friends. They spend every day together. They go running around the prairie, pick berries, and ride around on Jim’s horse, named Dude, and go sledding.  In addition, their families are also becoming close friends. Jim has a deep admiration for Antonia. She thinks that she is pretty and that she is the bravest girl he has ever met. He teachers her about the English language; She teaches him about the old country.

For Jim and the unknown speaker, Antonia symbolizes their childhood on the frontier of Nebraska.

I enjoy what I've read of My Antonia. My Antonia and the last book I read called, O Pioneers!, both share similar settings, character heritage, and personalities.  I enjoy books that describe settling in the open prairie and about expanding westward. The struggles that these families have faced make me appreciate what my ancestors had to go through when they first came to America. Moving to a new and unknown land was and is still difficult. I admire what my ancestors and so many other families did.