My Antonia (notes) Essay

Submitted By Omglikereally111
Words: 1100
Pages: 5

1. Parents died of small pox
2. Reading on the train
3. Jim alone !
4. Antonia & Jim didn't interact at train station
5. Grandparents came got him from the train station instead of Otto
6. Jim took Antonia's ring 7. Grandpa is more social , traded spots with grandma seems like
*time seems like it's moving quickly
1. Parents died of small pox
2. Reading on the train
3. Jim alone !
4. Antonia & Jim didn't interact at train station
5. Grandparents came got him from the train station instead of Otto
6. Jim took Antonia's ring 7. Grandpa is more social , traded spots with grandma seems like
*time seems like it's moving quickly
No Mr.Shimerda death
No wolves or snakes
No Pavel
HOW OLD IS JIM ?!
Grandparents want to move to the city so Jim can get better schooling

Pavel dies same way
Grandpa tells Jim he is to never see antonia again My Ántonia begins with a short fictional introduction told by a nameless narrator, who may or may not be the author herself. The narrator tells you about a friend of hers named Jim Burden, a lawyer for one of the transcontinental railroads. The narrator and Jim were friends when they were kids, and they both knew a rather remarkable Bohemian immigrant girl named Ántonia. (Bohemia is a region in what is now the Czech Republic.) The narrator, who is a writer, tells Jim that she wants to write about Ántonia, but feels that Jim, who knew the girl better, is more qualified to do it. So Jim writes a memoir about the girl and calls it "My Ántonia," and the remainder of the novel is this memoir itself.

Jim is ten years old and has recently been orphaned, so he moves from Virginia to Nebraska to live with his grandparents on their farm. On the ride there, Jim is accompanied by a farmhand named Jake Marpole, and hears that an immigrant family from Bohemia is traveling to the same area. Soon after he arrives on his grandparents' farm, Jim meets the Shimerdas, a Bohemian immigrant family, who turn out to be his grandparents' new closest neighbors. The family consists of Mr. Shimerda, who is unhappy in America and homesick for Bohemia; Mrs. Shimerda, who made the family move to America; Ambrosch, the rather mean and selfish oldest son; Ántonia, who is two years older than Jim; and several other children.

Mr. Shimerda asks Jim to teach Ántonia English, and the two children soon become close friends. Jim seems to hold great admiration for Ántonia – he associates her with the vast beauty of the Nebraskan landscape and the determination and will power common to early immigrants in the American West. As the two of them grow up, the exact nature of his feelings for her are not clear, particularly when it comes to the romantic element.

The Shimerda family suffers through a tough winter, as they don't have a lot of money or friends in the new country. Jim's grandparents help out as much as they can, but Mr. Shimerda ends up committing suicide out of despair and homesickness. Ántonia takes over many of her father's responsibilities, helping out her brother Ambrosch in the fields. When Jim goes off to school in town, she can't come with him, as she has to stay at the farm and work to support her family. Jim and Ántonia's friendship becomes more distant at this point; he's upset with her for working like a man out in the fields, and of course he simply doesn't see her around much after he starts school.

By the time Jim is ready for high school, he and his grandparents move off the farm and into the nearby town of Black Hawk, Nebraska. Ántonia's family remains on the farm, but Ántonia ends up moving in with a family in town called the Harlings and working as a cook/helper around the house. She is part of a group of "hired girls," immigrant girls who work and live in town to support their families back on the farm. This group also includes Lena Lingard and their friend Tiny Soderball.