Antonia's role in the novel goes beyond that of encompassing the pure nature of childhood. It represents a clear window of strong powerful women. Better said, "This extremely influential character represents a positive compromise with feminist ideals. She is independent and strong while still living as a wife and mother" (Giglio, 2006). In this sense, Antonia is the embodiment of the successful woman, still not the average successful woman. This is largely due to the fact that the expression of her achievements is not always considered to be the common desire for women those days. Still, the symbolist part of this side of the character reflects in fact the social reality of that era and from Cather's point-of-view, it is a fair and clear recollection of her past.
Jim's complex character can be considered to be the image of the author as Jim's adventures and journeys are often similar if not identical to those of Cather's. However, the issue of journey and the mere fact that all the characters moved from one place to another represents an important point because it offers a view on the trials and experiences of the journey which is in fact the spirit of life. One of the reasons for which the entire frame of the novel took place in the train reveals just this fact that the physical journeys are a trying time, of recollection and reflection, when magical things could happen.
Another important aspect in the way in which "My Antonia" portrays its characters is related to the technique used to produce the novel, the recollection. More precisely, the process of recollection reflects Jim's obedience for...
Willa Cather About the Author The author Willa Cather Sibert born on 1873 is an American writer, and one of the country's leading novelists. Here vigilantly skilled prose express dramatic pictures of the American landscape along with those people who were molded. She was influenced by the writing style of the American regional writer Sarah Orne Jewett. However, she set many of her works in Nebraska and the American Southwest areas with which
Cather's My Antonia Willa Cather's My Antonia is a novel that is essentially about a place -- in this case the Nebraska prairie -- and all of the elements in it are mostly ways of exploring what this place meant to the narrator, Jim Burden. Willa Cather, herself, moved to Catherton, Nebraska, at the age of nine, so many of the stories and the general setting of the story itself are
Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser, and "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. Specifically, it will determine what each character's value system is by asking what things are most important to her and what things or values she spends most of the time seeking. Each of these characters has strong and determined values that guide them through their lives. These values are at the core of their being, and help the
American Lit Definition of Modernism and Three Examples Indeed, creating a true and solid definition of modernism is exceptionally difficult, and even most of the more scholarly critical accounts of the so-called modernist movement tend to divide the category into more or less two different movements, being what is known as "high modernism," which reflected the erudition and scholarly experimentalism of Eliot, Joyce, and Pound, and the so-called "low modernism" of later
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