Unfortunately, some people’s ideas of immigrants hasn’t changed much over time: But ultimately I think the story is about the resilience of people like Antonia. Partly the book is about the immigrant experience of that time. Cather herself moved to Nebraska from Virginia as a child, as Jim Burden did. The book is partly about growing up on the prairie in the late 19th century.
Whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life.” He says of her near the end, “I know so many women who have kept all the things that she had lost, but whose inner glow has faded. She’s had a very hard life on many fronts, but maintained a strong spirit. Later he goes to college and law school and returns home less frequently, but he does see Antonia at intervals. Though he had something of a crush on her for a while, he becomes more of a longtime family friend. We also see Antonia’s growth and development through his eyes. The story is told from Jim’s point of view, and he describes their adventures and relates many stories of townsfolk. Antonia and many of the other immigrant girls worked in town and sent money home. Jim taught two of the Shimerda girls English, and Antonia spent time helping Jim’s grandmother in the kitchen.Īfter a few years, Jim’s grandparents got too old to maintain the farm and moved into town. She learned English more quickly than the rest, and she and Jim became childhood friends traipsing over the countryside together.
The oldest daughter of the family was a bright, eager girl a few years older than Jim named Antonia (pronounced with accents on the first and third syllables-An’-ton-EE-ah). The family had a hard time getting started, not only because of language barriers, poverty, and getting acclimated to new ways, but also for lack of what Jim’s grandmother called horse-sense. But that meant almost all the money they brought with them was gone. Since they could not speak English, couldn’t ask for advice, and didn’t know any better, they paid his prices. The Shimerdas had one crooked relative in the area who sold them his cave of a home and some equipment for much more than they were worth. Arriving on the same train was a Czech (called Bohemian then) family, the Shimerdas, who became Jim’s grandparents’ neighbors. When ten-year-old Jim Burden’s parents died, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Then Hope’s great review of Cather’s My Antonia piqued my interest. Though I had heard of Willa Cather, I had never read her books and had no plans to.
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