Megan+Cather+My+Antonia

**My Ántonia** By Willa Cather 

 Jim is ten years old when he is orphaned. His relatives in Virginia send him to live with his grandparents, the Burdens, in Nebraska. He travels with Jake, one of his father’s “hands” who is going to work for Jim’s grandfather. On the train to Nebraska the boys get their first glimpse of the Shimerdas, a bohemian family that will inhabit the land next to Jim’s grandparents.  
 * Plot **

Jim makes friends easily with the Shimerdas children, especially Ántonia. She is closest in age to Jim and is eager to learn English so Jim becomes Ántonia’s tutor. That fall Ántonia and Jim enthusiastically explore the landscape and form a bond that will last them a lifetime.  

That winter disaster strikes when Mr. Shimerda commits suicide, leaving his family to face the long, harsh winter without him. The Burdens try to be as comforting and accommodating as possible. As the winter progresses, Ántonia and Jim feel their friendship weakening and a wedge being driven between them.  Years later, Jim and his grandparents move to a little prairie town called Black Hawk. Shortly thereafter Ántonia gets a job as a housekeeper for the Harlings. The Harlings live next door to Jim. Ántonia and Jim rekindle their friendship particularly when a dancing pavilion comes to town. 

After finishing high school, Jim is offered a spot at the university in Lincoln. Jim becomes very studious until he rekindles his friendship with another childhood friend, Lena Lingard. After many months of theatergoing and dalliances Jim decides he is too distracted and needs to leave to finish his last years of college at Harvard. 

While Jim is away, Ántonia becomes engaged. She decides to move to Denver but before she is to be married her future husband abandons her. She is forced to return home and endure her families’ disappointment. She also finds that she is pregnant. To her families’ disapproval Ántonia has the baby and remains on her families’ farm working alongside her brother.

After finishing college, Jim returns home before starting law school. Jim returns to visit his grandparents. While he is in town, Jim travels to visit Ántonia. They talk about the old days and the changes in their lives. Before leaving Jim promises that one day he will return to visit her. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">Will Jim return? How have their lives changed? To find the answers to these questions read //__<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">My Ántonia __//. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">

I feel this book was placed on the Outstanding Books for the College Bound list because it is a great piece of work. Cather uses her amazing writing skills to tell a story. She connects her experiences of her childhood to the characters. Cather did a great job using symbolism in her book. One of my favorite uses of symbolism was when Jim and Antonia see the silhouette of a plow against the setting sun. This symbolizes that nature and man are coexisting. I found this very moving. Cather does a great job using the description of the prairie to reflect Jim’s mood. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">Cather did an outstanding job getting us to understand all the characters. She described there likes and dislikes, how they were feeling and every aspect of them in the right amount of words. The book was very descriptive but not boring as some books are. I feel Cather did an excellent job conveying emotion. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"> The book really shows the changes in life that people go through. Not only physical but the emotional changes as well. We experience Jim’s feelings changing towards many people including Ántonia and Lena. We get a feeling throughout the whole book that Jim is maturing and facing difficult problems. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 28pt; COLOR: #ffcc00; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 28pt; COLOR: #ffcc00; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">What made this book outstanding? **<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">

Willa Cather’s sensitivity to the prairie landscape and her elegantly uncomplicated prose style have earned her a spot among America's finest novelists, and //__My Ántonia__// continues to stand as the most lasting hallmark of her skill. //__My Ántonia__// is generally considered a modernist novel. In the early twentieth century, many authors were concerned with the alienation from society that resulted from ongoing processes of mechanization and industrialization. These writers responded to what they perceived as an increased fragmentation of the world by creating narratives and stories that were themselves fragmented. Cather participates in this tradition both by creating a novel whose plot does not have a highly structured form and by idealizing a preindustrial life far from the noise and speed of the city (“My Ántonia”).
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 28pt; COLOR: #ffcc00; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Literary Info **<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 26pt; COLOR: #4f81bd; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'"> I really enjoyed reading __//My Ántonia//__. I would recommend this book to anyone one who enjoys reading. Especially if they enjoy reading books that are based in the old west or on the prairie. This book was easy to read even if it is not one of the shorter books.
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 26pt; COLOR: #ffcc00; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">Would I recommend this book? **<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #76923c; FONT-FAMILY: 'Cambria','serif'; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1783 in rural Virginia. She was one of seven children. When she was nine years old her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska where she spent the rest of her childhood. Cather attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. While in college, Cather was a regular contributor to the //Nebraska State Journal//. After college Willa Cather moved to Pittsburg to pursue a career in journalism. Between 1901 and 1906 she taught high school English and Latin. In 1912, Cather published her first novel, //__Alexander’s Bridge__//. In 1913, she published //__O Pioneers!__// And in 1918, Willa Cather published //__My Ántonia__//. She is most famous for it. In 1973, the Unites States Postal Service honored Cather by using her image on a postage stamp. In 1981 the US Mint created the Willa Cather medallion, a half-ounce gold coin. Cather died on April 27, 1947.
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 28pt; COLOR: #ffcc00; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Handwriting'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Biography **

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