Metaphor Chapter 4 Prairie Dog Community Shimerda Family

Novel by Willa Cather

This commodity is about the novel by Willa Cather. For the 1995 film adaptation, see My Antonia (film).

My Ántonia

First edition dustjacket
Author	Willa Cather
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin (Boston)
Publication date	1918
Pages	175
OCLC	30894639
Dewey Decimal	813/.52 20
LC Grade	PS3505.A87 M8
Preceded by	The Song of the Lark

My Ántonia ( AN-tə-nee-ə) is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered ane of her best works.

The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder girl in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. The first yr in the very new identify leaves potent impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong.

This novel is considered Cather'southward first masterpiece. Cather was praised for bringing the American West to life and making it personally interesting.

Title [edit]

The title refers to Ántonia, a immature woman immigrant to the western prairies of the Usa. The story is told by her friend Jim, who arrives in that location at historic period ten to live with his grandparents. Jim thinks of her as his close friend, my Ántonia. The name is pronounced as information technology would be in Czech.^{[Notes 1]}

Narration [edit]

Cather chose a first-person narrator because she felt that novels depicting deep emotion, such every bit My Ántonia, were near effectively narrated by a character in the story.^[3] The novel is divided into sections chosen Books: I The Shimerdas, 2 The Hired Girls, III Lena Lingard, IV The Pioneer Woman'due south Story, V Cuzak'due south Boys.

Plot summary [edit]

Orphaned Jim Brunt rides the trains from Virginia to Black Militarist, Nebraska, where he will live with his paternal grandparents. Jake, a farmhand from Virginia, rides with the x-twelvemonth-old boy. On the same train, headed to the same destination, is the Shimerda family from Bohemia. Jim lives with his grandparents in the habitation they have built, helping as he tin can with chores to ease the labor on the others. The abode has the dining room and kitchen downstairs, like a basement, with modest windows at the top of the walls, an arrangement quite different from Jim's domicile in Virginia. The sleeping quarters and parlor are at ground level. The Shimerda family paid for a homestead which proves to have no domicile on it, but a cave in the world, and non much of the country cleaved for cultivation. The two families are nearest neighbors to each other in a sparsely settled land. Ántonia, the elder daughter in the Shimerda family, is a few years older than immature Jim. The two are friends from the start, helped by Mrs. Shimerda asking that Jim teach both her daughters to read English. Ántonia helps Mrs. Burden in her kitchen when she visits, learning more nearly cooking and housekeeping. The showtime twelvemonth is extremely hard for the Shimerda family, without a proper business firm in the winter. Mr. Shimerda comes to thank the Burdens for the Christmas gifts given to them, and has a peaceful day with them, sharing a meal and the parts of a Christian tradition that Protestant Mr. Burden and Catholic Mr. Shimerda respect. He did not want to movement from Bohemia, where he had a skilled trade, a home and friends with whom he could play his violin. His wife is sure life volition be meliorate for her children in America.

The pressures of the new life are likewise much for Mr. Shimerda, who kills himself before the winter is finished. The nearest Catholic priest is likewise far away for concluding rites. He is buried without formal rites at the corner marker of their homestead, a place that is left lone when the territory is after marked out with section lines and roads. Ántonia stops her lessons and begins to work the state with her older brother. The wood piled up to build their log motel is made into a firm. Jim continues to take adventures with Ántonia when they tin, discovering nature around them, alive with color in summertime and almost monotone in winter. She is a daughter full of life. Deep memories are set in both of them from the adventures they share, including the fourth dimension Jim killed a long rattlesnake with a shovel they were fetching for Ambrosch, her older brother.

A few years afterward Jim arrives, his grandparents motion to the edge of town, buying a firm while renting their farm. Their neighbors, the Harlings, have a housekeeper to help with meals and care of the children. When they need a new housekeeper, Mrs. Burden connects Ántonia with Mrs. Harling, who hires her for good wages. Becoming a town girl is a success, as Ántonia is popular with the children, and learns more than about running a household, letting her brother handle the heavy farm chores. She stays in town for a few years, having her worst experience with Mr. and Mrs. Cutter. The couple goes out of town while she is their housekeeper, after Mr. Cutter said something that made Ántonia uncomfortable to stay alone in the house as requested. Jim stays there in her place, only to be surprised by Mr. Cutter returning to rape Ántonia, whom he expects will be alone and defenseless. Instead, Jim attacks the intruder, belatedly realizing that it is Mr. Cutter.

Jim does well in school, the valedictorian of his loftier school form. He attends the new land university in Lincoln, where his heed is opened to a new intellectual life. In his second yr, he finds i of the immigrant subcontract girls, Lena, is in Lincoln, likewise, with a successful dressmaking business. He takes her to plays, which they both bask. His teacher realizes that Jim is so distracted from his studies, that he suggests Jim come up with him to finish his studies at Harvard in Boston. He does, where he so studies the law. He becomes an attorney for one of the western railroads. He keeps in impact with Ántonia, whose life takes a difficult plough when the man she loves proposes wedlock, but deceives her and leaves her with kid. She moves back in with her mother. Years afterward, Jim visits Ántonia, coming together Anton Cuzak, her husband and father of ten more children, on their farm in Nebraska. He visits with them, getting to know her sons especially. They know all about him, every bit he features in the stories of their mother'south childhood. She is happy with her brood and all the work of a farm wife. Jim makes plans to take her sons on a hunting trip next year.

Reception and literary significance [edit]

My Ántonia was enthusiastically received in 1918 when it was offset published. It was considered a masterpiece and placed Cather in the forefront of novelists. Today, information technology is considered her first masterpiece. Cather was praised for bringing the American W to life and making it personally interesting. It brought place forwards almost as if it were one of the characters, while at the same time playing upon the universality of the emotions, which in turn promoted regional American literature as a valid part of mainstream literature.^{[5] [vi] : vii}

"As Cather intended, there is no plot in the usual sense of the discussion. Instead, each volume contains thematic contrasts."^[7] The novel was a departure from the focus on wealthy families in American literature; "it was a radical aesthetic move for Cather to feature lower-class, immigrant 'hired girls.'"^[7]

Cather too makes a number of comments concerning her views on women'due south rights, and there are many disguised sexual metaphors in the text.^{[half dozen] : 15}

My Ántonia is a selection of The Big Read, the community-wide reading program of The National Endowment for the Arts.^[viii] For the communities and books in the programme since 2007, see History of the program since 2007.^[9]

Writing in February 2020, critic and essayist Robert Christgau chosen My Ántonia a "magnificent, nonetheless besides obscure novel" and said information technology "scrupulously documents the facts and foibles of farming every bit way of life and means of production, although not in the detail of O Pioneers!"^[ten]

When author and columnist Rebecca Traister was asked by Ezra Klein during his New York Times podcast on March xix, 2021 if there was a book she rereads for the "sheer dazzler of the prose" Traister was emphatic:  "For the dazzler of the writing, I mean, I would say that my go-to is really My Antonia by Willa Cather, which is a volume I starting time read in high school and found slightly ho-hum merely beautiful, and and so read again in my 20s and was merely totally enraptured by and and so take gone back to over again and again and again equally a beautiful slice of writing."^[eleven]

Publication history [edit]

The novel was shaped by the contribution of Viola Roseboro', Cather's editor at McClure's Magazine, who read the original manuscript after it had been repeatedly rejected, and told Cather that she should rewrite it from Jim'south viewpoint.^[12]

The 1918 version of My Antonia begins with an Introduction in which an writer-narrator, supposed to be Cather herself, converses with her adult friend, Jim Burden, during a train journey. Jim is at present a successful New York lawyer but trapped in an unhappy and childless marriage to a wealthy, activist woman.^{[xiii] : xv} Cather agreed with her publisher at Houghton Mifflin to cut that introduction when a revised edition of the novel was published in 1926.^{[13] : xiv} A cursory introduction with Jim taking that train ride, speaking with an unnamed woman who also knew Ántonia well-nigh writing about her, is included in the version at Project Gutenberg.^[14]

Allusions to the novel [edit]

Douglas Sirk'due south picture, The Tarnished Angels, makes reference to My Ántonia equally the last volume read 12 years earlier past heroine, LaVerne, played by Dorothy Malone. She discovers the volume in the apartment of the alcoholic reporter, Burke Devlin, played past Stone Hudson. After LaVerne'due south married man, Roger (played by Robert Stack), dies in an airplane racing accident, Burke Devlin sends LaVerne and her son, Jack, on a plane to Chicago, which will connect them to their adjacent flight to Nebraska to get-go a new life. In the terminal scene, every bit LaVerne boards her plane, Shush easily LaVerne the book, My Ántonia.

Emmylou Harris' 2000 anthology Blood-red Dirt Girl features the contemplative song "My Ántonia", as a duet with Dave Matthews. Harris wrote the song from Jim'due south perspective as he reflects on his long lost love.

The French songwriter and vocalist, Dominique A, wrote a song inspired by the novel, called "Antonia" (from the LP Auguri, 2001).

In Richard Powers' 2006 novel The Echo Maker the character Marker Schluter reads My Ántonia on the recommendation of his nurse, who notes that it is "[A] very sexy story. ... About a immature Nebraska country boy who has the hots for an older woman" (page 240).

In Anton Shammas' 1986 novel Arabesques, the autobiographical character of Anton reads My Ántonia on the plane to a writers' workshop in Iowa. It is the commencement novel he ever read, and he expects Iowa to have the same grass "the colour of wine stains" that Cather describes of Nebraska.^[15]

Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware brews a continually-hopped imperial pilsner named My Ántonia.^[16]

In the introduction of his New year's Twenty-four hours opinion piece entitled "2019: The Yr of the Wolves" in The New York Times, David Brooks evoked Pavel's deathbed story^{[Notes 2]} from My Ántonia ^{[17] [Notes three]} of how he and Peter^{[Notes iv]} had been banished from their hamlet in the Ukraine for throwing a bride and groom to the wolves to relieve their own lives when the 6 sledges of the inebriated bridal party were attacked by about 30 wolves.^{[18] : 56–60 [xix] [Notes five]} Pavel, who was the friend of the groom, had unsuccessfully attempted to convince the groom to save himself besides by sacrificing his bride, but the groom fought to protect her.^{[18] : 56–60} When the 2 sole survivors returned along to the hamlet, they became pariahs, cast out of their own hamlet and everywhere they went. "Pavel's own female parent would non await at him. They went away to strange towns, but when people learned where they came from, they were always asked if they knew the two men who had fed the bride to the wolves. Wherever they went, the story followed them."^{[18] : 56–60} This is how they came to settle in Black Hawk on the Nebraska prairie.^[17] Brooks compares 2019 to that Russian winter in the 19th century where it was known that wolves have been attacking humans, and a vulnerable wedding ceremony party that is a "bit drunk" is being led by two men who are willing to do anything to survive, including throwing their friend and his married woman to the wolves.^{[17] [19] : 55–6} He foresees the upcoming year as one "where good people lay low and where wolves are left free to prey on the weak".^[17] In his deathbed confession, Pavel explained, "...the ones who practice the sacrificing, who throwaway the luggage — bodies, loyalties, allegiances — are the ones who survive."^{[xviii] : 56–threescore}

In Barbara Kingsolver's 2018 novel Unsheltered, a chief character is named Willa, after Willa Cather. A paragraph of My Ántonia is quoted in Kingsolver's novel in the context of a dead adult female wanting information technology read at her funeral. ^[twenty]

In Bret Stephens' opinion slice in The New York Times, July xix, 2019, titled "The Perfect Antidote to Trump – Willa Cather knew what made America great"^[21] Stephens wrote that Willa Cather'southward My Ántonia is "a book for our times—and the perfect antidote to our President." "My Ántonia becomes an education in what it means to exist American." Nosotros need to recall "what we're actually virtually, starting by rereading My Ántonia."

Adaptations [edit]

Television [edit]

My Antonia, a 1995 made-for-tv set moving picture, was adapted from the novel.

Stage [edit]

The Illusion Theater in Minneapolis, MN, staged an adaptation of My Ántonia by playwright Allison Moore and original music by Roberta Carlson in 2010. The production received an Ivey Award, and toured Minnesota in 2012, 2013, and Nebraska in 2019.^[22]

The Celebration Visitor at The Station Theatre in Urbana, Illinois, performed a stage adaptation of My Ántonia in Dec 2011. The adaptation was written past Celebration Company member Jarrett Dapier.^[23]

Book-It Repertory Theater produced an original stage adaptation of My Ántonia in December 2018. Adjusted by Annie Lareau, it ran from November 29-December 30, 2018 at the Center Theater in Seattle, WA. ^[24] Seattle Weekly praised the production, saying, "...with the current administration'southward racial fearmongering as a goad, Book-Information technology'south exploring yet another aspect of Cather's 1915 novel My Ántonia, every bit adapted and directed by Annie Lareau, mixing racially traditional and nontraditional casting in ways that encourage the audience to view its tale of the immigrant experience in broader terms."^[25]

See also [edit]

• Pavelka Farmstead

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Cather writes, "The Bohemian name Ántonia is strongly accented on the first syllable, like the English name Anthony, and the i is given the sound of long e. The proper noun is pronounced An'-ton-ee-ah.", a footnote in the text, at the offset of Book I The Shimerdas.^{[one] : nine} The Czech pronunciation tin be heard at this sound file.^[2] Note that English "Anthony" begins with a dissimilar vowel sound than the adult female's name in Czech. Cather's caption of the "i" and "a" phonemes is not entirely clear: "ee-yah" would exist more authentic than "ee-ah".
2. ^ Early in the story, Peter and Pavel are securely in debt to Wick Cutter, who is known in Black Hawk for lending money. Ántonia and Jim back-trail Ántonia'due south begetter to visit Pavel later on he is fatally injured during the construction of a barn. Pavel shares his deathbed confession with them. After Pavel dies, Peter leaves Black Hawk.
3. ^ Ántonia's father befriended the two Russians, Pavel and Peter.
4. ^ In his 2009 article in the Great Plains Quarterly, Robin Chen wrote that the names, Peter and Pavel, are those of "stock characters in Russian folktales" whom Ántonia's father befriended two Russians, Pavel and Peter.
5. ^ Cohen also noted Cather'due south depiction of wolves is not based on verifiable sources on the behaviour of real wolves. People ofttimes overestimate the size of packs of wolves and individual wolves.

References [edit]

1. ^ Cather, Willa (11 December 2008). Sharistanian, Janet (ed.). My Ántonia . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-953814-X.
2. ^ "Pronunciations for Antonia". Forvo . Retrieved August 19, 2020. Pending pronunciation for Czech ^{[ dead link ]}
3. ^ Woodress, James (1987). Willa Cather: A Literary Life . Lincoln, NE h: University of Nebraska Press. p. 289.
4. ^ Billesbach, Ann E. "Pavelka Farmstead (Antonia Farmstead), pdf [WT00-104] Listed 1979/04/13". Nebraska State Historical Club. Archived from the original on Apr thirteen, 2000. Retrieved September 12, 2015. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
5. ^ Heller, Terry (2007). "Cather's My Ántonia Promotes Regional Literature"". In Gorman, Robert F. (ed.). Keen Events from History: The 20th Century: 1901–1940 – Book 3 1915–1923 . Pasadena, California: Salem Press. pp. 1403–1406. ISBN978-1-58765-327-8.
6. ^ ^{a b} Spud, John J. (1994). Introduction to Cather, Willa My Ántonia . New York: Penguin Books. ISBN0-14-018764-2.
7. ^ ^{a b} "My Ántonia by Willa Cather: Introduction to the Book". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
8. ^ "Description of My Ántonia". The Large Read. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
9. ^ "History/Overview of The Big Read". National Endowment of the Arts. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
10. ^ Christgau, Robert (February 26, 2020). "Queen of Plainstyle". And It Don't Cease. SubStack. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
11. ^ Klein, Ezra (2021-03-nineteen). "Opinion | Andrew Cuomo and the Performance of Power". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-03-24 .
12. ^ The Strange, Forgotten Life of Viola Roseboro', in The Paris Review; past Stephanie Gorton; published February 24, 2020; retrieved Baronial 8, 2021
13. ^ ^{a b} O'Brien, Sharon, ed. (1998). New Essays on My Antonia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-45275-9.
14. ^ "My Antonia by Willa Cather". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
15. ^ Shammas, Anton. Arabesques. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988. p. 138.
16. ^ "My Antonia". Dogfish Head Brewery. Milton, Delaware. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
17. ^ ^{a b c d} Brooks, David (Jan ane, 2019). "2019: The Twelvemonth of the Wolves". The New York Times. Opinion. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved Jan 1, 2019.
18. ^ ^{a b c d} Cather, Willa (1994). My Antonia. New York: Dover.
19. ^ ^{a b} Cohen, Robin (Winter 2009). "Jim, Antonia, and the Wolves Displacement in Cather's My Antonia" (PDF). Swell Plains Quarterly. Groovy Plains Studies. Eye for Great Plains Studies. 29 (1): 9. ISSN 0275-7664. Retrieved January 1, 2019. Pages=51-50
20. ^ Kingsolver, Barbara (2018). Unsheltered. HarperCollins. p. 487. ISBN978-0-06-268456-1.
21. ^ Stephens, Bret (2019-07-20). "Opinion | The Perfect Antidote to Trump (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-03-03 .
22. ^ "My Antonia". Illusion Theater . Retrieved 3 March 2019.
23. ^ "Past Seasons, Season 40". Urbana, Illinois: The Celebration Visitor at Station Theatre. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
24. ^ "My Antonia". Seattle, Washington: Book-Information technology Repertory Theater. Retrieved Dec 13, 2018.
25. ^ "In My Antonia, Boggling Acting Packs a Punch". Seattle, Washington: Seattle Weekly. Retrieved December 13, 2018.

Bibliography [edit]

Books [edit]

• Bloom, Harold (editor) (1987) Willa Cather'southward My Ántonia Chelsea House, New York, ISBN 1-55546-035-6; eleven essays
• Bloom, Harold (editor) (1991) Ántonia Chelsea House, New York, ISBN 0-7910-0950-v; more essays
• Lindemann, Marilee (editor) (2005) The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather Cambridge University Printing, Cambridge, England, ISBN 0-521-82110-Ten
• Meyering, Sheryl Fifty. (2002) Understanding O pioneers! and My Antonia: A student casebook to bug, sources, and historical documents Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, ISBN 0-313-31390-iii
• Spud, John J. (1989) My Ántonia: The road domicile Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, ISBN 0-8057-7986-8
• O'Brien, Sharon (1987) Willa Cather: The Emerging Vocalisation Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, ISBN 0-19-504132-i
• O'Brien, Sharon (editor) (1999) New essays on Cather'south My Antonia Cambridge University Printing, Cambridge, England, ISBN 0-521-45275-9
• Rosowski, Susan J. (1989) Approaches to Teaching Cather's My Ántonia Modern Linguistic communication Association of America, New York, ISBN 0-87352-520-v
• Smith, Christopher (2001) Readings on My Antonia Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California, ISBN 0-7377-0181-1
• Wenzl, Bernhard (2001) Mythologia Americana – Willa Cather'due south Nebraska novels and the myth of the borderland Grin, Munich, ISBN 978-3-640-14909-iv
• Ying, Hsiao-ling (1999) The Quest for Cocky-actualization: Female protagonists in Willa Cather's Prairie trilogy Bookman Books, Taipei, Taiwan, ISBN 957-586-795-5

Manufactures [edit]

• Fetterley, Judith (1986) "My Ántonia, Jim Brunt, and the Dilemma of the Lesbian Author" In Spector, Judith (editor) (1986) Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist Criticism Bowling Light-green Country Academy Popular Press, Bowling Light-green, Ohio, pages 43–59, ISBN 0-87972-351-3; and In Jay, Karla and Glasgow, Joanne (editors) (1990) Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions New York University Press, New York, pages 145–163, ISBN 0-8147-4175-four
• Fischer, Mike (1990) "Pastoralism and Its Discontents: Willa Cather and the Burden of Imperialism" Mosaic (Winnipeg) 23(xi): pp. 31–44
• Fisher-Wirth, Ann (1993) "Out of the Mother: Loss in My Ántonia" Cather Studies 2: pp. 41–71
• Gelfant, Blanche H. (1971) "The Forgotten Reaping-Hook: Sexual activity in My Ántonia" American Literature 43: pp. sixty–82
• Giannone, Richard (1965) "Music in My Ántonia" Prairie Schooner 38(4); covered in Giannone, Richard (1968) Music in Willa Cather's Fiction Academy of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, pages 116–122, OCLC 598716
• Holmes, Catherine D. (1999) "Jim Burden'southward Lost Worlds: Exile in My Ántonia" Twentieth-Century Literature 45(iii): pp. 336–346
• Lambert, Deborah Yard. (1982) "The Defeat of a Hero: Autonomy and Sexuality in My Ántonia" American Literature 53(4): pp. 676–690
• Millington, Richard H. (1994) "Willa Cather and "The Storyteller": Hostility to the Novel in My Ántonia" American Literature 66(4): pp. 689–717
• Prchal, Tim (2004) "The Maverick Paradox: My Antonia and Popular Images of Czech Immigrants" MELUS (Social club for the Report of the Multi- Ethnic Literature of the United States) 29(2): pp. iii–25
• Tellefsen, Blythe (1999) "Blood in the Wheat: Willa Cather'south My Antonia" Studies in American Fiction 27(2): pp. 229–244
• Urgo, Joseph (1997) "Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration" College English 59(2): pp. 206–217
• Yukman, Claudia (1988) "Borderland Relationships in Willa Cather'due south My Ántonia" Pacific Coast Philology 23(1/2): pp. 94–105

External links [edit]

lairdfultentreske.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_%C3%81ntonia

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