In this scene, we learn that Antonia’s mother is ill, she blames herself for how her life has turned out, and her deplorable home life has become “normal to her. The most obvious and prominent take-away a reader may receive from this scene is the illness of Antonia’s mother, Patrice. This is incredibly significant to the story, as it has shaped Antonia’s entire life, as well as the lives of her brothers. As Antonia arrives home, it is evident (through inference) that her mother is not present, since no one is monitoring the quarreling boys. From just this alone, the reader may think that she has just gone out to the store or some other place.
Lastly, Jim is comparable to a father through the love that he expresses toward Huck. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain expresses how Jim is more of a father to Huck than Pap through Jim’s protection, lessons, and love. First, Jim is seen as a father
Was Willa Cather’s widely recognized novel, My Antonia, titled after the wrong character? Jim concludes his memoir stating that Antonia “still had that something which fires the imagination.... All the strong things of her heart came out in her body.... She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races” which seemingly proves that Antonia is Jim’s soul inspiration, the heroine of the novel (Cather 211). However, if this is the case, why would Jim ostensibly forget her for a whole chapter to fixate on a different character? Antonia also never seems to meet Jim’s expectations, for it is Lena that makes an appearance in Jim's subconscious, not Antonia. Although Jim may be unaware, the Psychoanalytical Lens helps explain why in the
Jim and Antonia become friends immediately, and it seems as though all will go well for the young girl. Along with being a friend, Jim fulfills Mr. Shimerda’s request of being a teacher to his new neighbor, helping Antonia learn English. This creates a positive tone, as Antonia is thriving in her new country. However, the mood shifts abruptly from joyful to somber with a harsh winter and the death of Antonia’s father. These events cause the two kids to drift apart, and the effects on Antonia are evident as she withdraws from Jim and his family.
As well as performing chores about her own household, Antonia loves to help her neighbor, Mrs. Burden around the house. However, after her father commits suicide, Antonia has little time for activities other than labor. In just eight months, Antonia developed from a child into a tall, strong young girl who could hold her own while conducting the farm work. During this time, Antonia had often helped her older brother with the men’s tasks, such as plowing and harvesting.
Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin”(26). Through Jim’s advice, he is able to show the traditional comfort a father may provide while still being honest. The fact that Jim provides Huck with a sort of emotional protection from his biological father, shows how Jim has adopted the role of a fatherly figure for Huck. Another instance when Jim provides emotional protection from Pap is when they discover the house floating down the river;“Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face—it’s too gashly.’ I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him”(57).
In this quote from "My Ántonia" it can be seen that before Jim was asked to teach her, Ántonia had difficulties communicating with people who spoke a different language than her. "My papa find friends up north, with Russian mans. Last night he take me for see, and I can understand very much talk. Nice mans, Mrs. Burden.
Jim arrives in Nebraska in the fall, reborn into a strange new world, where “there was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” (7) Like a fresh slate, Nebraska’s landscape offered a place for Jim to first experience “the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide,” (11) much like the hide Jim was first wrapped in when he got off the train. In the summer, which concludes “The Shimerdas,” the incoming storm symbolises and personifies change that is to come in both Jim and Antonia’s lives: the move to town and the inevitable
“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea... And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.” book one chapter two. Even after Jim grows up, he still retains the childlike wonder of the land around him. The amount of admiration that Jim holds for the land reflects on his innocence as a child. He still sees the beauty in the land, while an adult only sees work that needs to be done. This also shows maturity in that Jim is able to see beyond what society takes from the land and find a different perspective of his surroundings.
The grandfather tells Antonio very calmly rather than being full of emotion and full of energy like him. Antonio learns much from the stories and interprets that because of his youth he doesn’t have the wisdom of his