My Antonia Character Analysis

Willa Cather’s My Ántonia tells the story of Jim Burden’s childhood friendship with the neighbor girl, Ántonia, and disconnect as they grow up. Jim is urged by a friend to write about Ántonia, and the story is told their his memoir. Jim is ten, arriving in Nebraska after being orphaned when he meets Jake Marpole, a farmhand of his grandparents who first mentions the Shimerda family. Later, another farmhand drives the Burden’s over to meet their neighbors, they speak through a translator because the Shimerda family doesn’t speak English. Jim is introduced to the family and is shocked by the varying dispositions of the children. Mr. Shimerda later asks that he teach Ántonia, and Jim gradually grows closer to the family. In the winter, Jim and his grandmother visit them,

Shimerda kills himself after Christmas, leaving Ántonia’s older brother, Ambrosch and their mother heartbroken. Disparities in wealth fuel conflict between the families, as Ambrosch borrows and breaks a saw and Mrs. Shimerda refuses to pay after buying a cow. This boils over when Jake punches Ambrosch over a stolen horse collar, and Jake is forced to pay a fine. A few years later, the Burden’s move into the city and Ántonia begins to do housework for their neighbors, the Harling’s. Jim and Ántonia enjoy city life, watching Blind d’Arnault play “My Old Kentucky Home” at a holiday party and dancing at the Vannis’s tent. After a party, Mr. Harling catches Ántonia deflecting a kiss from an engaged man and accuses her of being too easy to bed. He offers an ultimatum, she can quit going to the dances or he’ll fire her, Ántonia enjoys her newfound freedom greatly and decides to go work for the Cutters’. In August, the Cutters go out of town, leaving Ántonia, who is worried about Mr. Cutters odd mannerisms, to mind the house. Jim offers to spend the night to lessen Ántonia’s worries, and he is awoken by Mr. Cutter aggressively accusing him of sleeping with Ántonia, and he runs away battered and