Have you ever wondered what it would be life to live in the middle of nowhere or on a vast and empty prairie? Willa Cather’s book , My Antonia, like many of her other books, takes place in the vast prairies of Nebraska. The book’s introduction is a man remembering his childhood in Nebraska, with his friend Antonia. Throughout the book Antonia is constantly brought up, even after Jim moves to New York. Throughout Jim’s life he faces many changes, but never forgets Antonia and his home town. Antonia and the Nebraskan prairies are the first encounters Jim as a new orphan, at the age of 10, when he moves in with his grandparents. There he learned that the prairies are vast, empty, and hard to live in. From the safety of his grandparent’s home, Jim sees the struggles that Antonia and her family face. Jim’s new environment and easy life make him want to adventure his surroundings. Jim and Antonia go out very frequently to adventure and have fun on the prairies. During one of their adventures, Jim and Antonia bump into a ginormous rattlesnake, luckily Jim had a shovel in his hand and simply killed the snake with the shovel. They …show more content…
Both were fascinated with how hard it was to settle in the prairies. When the Cather visited her family she was reunited with one of her friends, whose father’s suicide was one of the stories she had put in My Antonia. Cather’s friends was a middle aged woman when she visited and was surrounded by her children, she served as the model for the book’s protagonist and turned her memories of Nebraska into the great
Jim lives with his grandparents in Black Hawk, and two farmhands, Jake and Otto Fuchs. Jim arrives in Nebraska after his parents have died, at the same time as Antonia and her family. The Shimerda family live close to Jim’s grandparents, and they become friends. Jim teaches Antonia to speak English, and they spend a lot of time together exploring where they live. The Shimerdas are not doing very well in Nebraska, and Jim’s grandparents try to help them by providing food and items they can use.
Lena had brought them all back to me” (173). All it takes is a single visit from Lena to send Jim deep into contemplation, reminiscing about the times he had on the prairie. In particular, Jim thinks of a
On page 25 it said,” We are on our annual father-and-kids trip to Coloma, California. This drive is only two hours from our house in San Francisco, but it feels like traveling to a different country”(McCarry, 25).Josie is on a trip with her brother and her dad in which the setting of the story in California. But not the beachy California it’s like from the movie Old West. Here’s an example,“Small wooden stores, saloons leaning woozily into dusty streets, the foreboding sense that some outlaws could come riding into town at any moment, looking for a shoot out”(McCarry, 25).In the “The Day it Rained Cats” the setting is in Sheera’s house. On page 23 it said,”I saw a cat plummet past my window, followed by two more, so I clapped my book shut and rushed outside”(Park,23).In the “The Day it Rained Cats” the setting is in Sheera’s house.
The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old cowboy who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English.[2] The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him. Traveling by horseback, the pair travels southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys.
The town was described with hills that looked like White Elephants. The author also describe the couple as “The Americans”. Ernest Hemingway also did a good job by describing the situation of the the couple in the 1920’s The couple was
Town life wears at Antonia and Jim’s innocence—Antonia capers with young men at a local dancing tent, and Jim flirts with pretty Bohemian immigrant Lena Lingard. Later at college, Jim’s secret love for Lena and close friendship with her distract him from his studies. Escaping to Harvard for renewed
Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! depicts a barren, wind torn prairie in Hanover, Nebraska. The pioneers that live there try desperately to work the land, but the land continues to be working against them. The character referred to in this statement is Alexandra Bergson. She is focused and motivated, with an overall androgynous look. After her father dies, Alexandra is left in charge of the operations of the farm because she is the smartest of all of the children.
In 1862, the United States government begins settling of Nebraska and other territories with the initiation of The Homestead Act. The U.S Government allows every person to claim 160 acres of government land. American citizen like Jim’s grandparents simply moved west, on the other hand immigrants like Shimerdas and Peter & Pavel, came across the ocean to seek for a American Dream in a brand new world. As it is largely represented in My Antonia by Willa Cather, both of the groups are defined as an settlers from the outer world in that they suffer the trials of a new and unpleasant life. But while both Jim and Antonia have shared loneliness and homesickness for the lands they left behind, My Antonia emphasizes, the greater struggle of the very
How does a third person omniscient narrator affect a story? The Lovely Bones, a novel by Alice Sebold, is about a girl named Susie who is raped and killed. After being killed, Susie goes off to Heaven and we are shown how she adapts to living in heaven. We see her killer continue to live among her family and friends, and we see her family fall apart. Susie knows what everyone does and thinks, and she shares this with the reader.
This has increasingly frustrated Jim over the course of their friendship. After he, in her perspective, proves his strength by killing the rattlesnake, she respects him and never talks down to him
Marigolds Essay I read a short passage from a book called Marigolds, this book focuses on a girl named Lizabeth who’s living in poverty with her family during the great depression. Throughout the book, the author uses diction, flashbacks, juxtaposition, and imagery to convey the narrator’s - Lizabeth’s - voice. Diction is used frequently in the passage. The narrator uses diction to create voice.
Antonia was around the same age as Jim so she gravitated toward him. Jim was Antonia's first friend when they moved to Nebraska. Jim taught Antonia how to speak English
Margaret Laurence’s “Where the World Began” is an essay focused on describing her most adored childhood memories while growing up in the apparent “dull, bleak, flat, uninteresting” plains of the Canadian Prairies (Laurence 58). However throughout her essay Laurence does not simply give depictions of her prairie birthplace or her childhood. She strategically uses these examples to help portray Canada and the astonishing affection she holds towards the nation. Through the intense details of Laurence’s prairie birthplace she describes the lively landscape, activities she once enjoyed, and the stories of the abnormalities that made her hometown energetic and alive. Laurence constantly poses the question, “how can a town so flourishing be considered
In My Antonia, Jim made the choice to leave Antonia to become a business man in New York City. He had to break any bond he had with her in order to leave on a clear conscience, and not be held back from being
Aunt Georgiana has come all the way from Red Willow County on a day coach and is exhausted and disheveled when she arrives in Boston. Clark notices that her familiar, misshapen figure is so stooped now that her shoulders are almost bent together; she wears "ill-fitting false teeth" and her skin is yellow from constant exposure to the elements. Ignoring the warnings of her family and friends, Georgiana eloped with her enamored suitor and left behind forever the comfortable environs of the big city. Their lives were fraught with constant hardship and danger. Clark knew how harsh it was for being over there at Nebraska.