My Antonia
My Antonio
Willa Cather wrote My Antonia to show some of the moral lessons people undergo in life. She makes the audience realize that everything in life isn't easy. That life is full of hard choices and sacrifices. The book gives examples of how the main character, Jim Burden undergoes life's hardships by losing his parents, his true love and his friends. Cather also writes about Antonia, a strong and determined woman who works in the fields. She emphasizes on the idea that there should be no limitations set for any woman.
Antonia once states "Oh, better I like to work out-of-doors than in a house!" (P. 138) Jim realizes that after the death of her father, Antonia has to sacrifice being lady like so that her family may prosper. Jim is sad by the choice she has made, because it doesn't allow her enough time to see him. He unwillingly accepts Antonia's choice of not going to school and working out in the fields with her unappreciative brother Ambrosch. Jim is devastated of how Antonia has progressively acting like her arrogant and boastful mother.
When Jimmy visits Antonia after she has had her wedlock baby, he doesn't disdain her yet he admires her ever lasting pride, she tells him "Jimmy, I sat right down on that bank beside her and made lament. I cried like a young thing. I was heart-broke."(P. 313) Antonia was abandoned by her husband and had to play the role of a mother and as an income earning father. She had showed everyone from Black Hawk that she was going to succeed from her mistakes. Jimmy reminisces about the time Antonia once again had to make her family prosper. Both Antonia and Jim had gone through hardships at this point of the book. Jim had first lost Antonia and while going to college had lost Lena Lingard, his first sweetheart.
Willa Cather has shown real life situations in My Antonia. Morals and overcoming hardships have been mostly taught in this book. We see in the story how Jim and Antonia are always...
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