Impressions of My Antonia :: My Antonia Essays

Impressions of My Antonia             My Antonia has been called nostalgic and elegiac because it celebrates the past.  The inscription on the title paginate of My Antonia is a quotation from Virgil Optima dies... prima fugit. This sentence, meaning the best long time argon first to flee, helps incorporate all the elements of the novel I would akin to discuss.  It not only makes clear that Willa Cather impart deal with memories of a in back toothdescent past, but also allows suitable basis to show how nature can change and affect a relationship.  It also hints at the Hellenic, to a crowing extent pastoral tone the novel will be stick in.  A pastoral work retreats to an ideal rural setting.  Jim gist not only goes back to the prairie, but more importantly, he retreats to the innocent days of his very first memories.  While this reflects on the focus of the paper, I will use two characters, Jim and Antonia, to illustrate these issues, and show why they make this control such a delightful work of art.           My Antonia is told from the point of view of Willa Cathers pretended friend, Jim charge.  He writes in the first person, and his use of the pronoun I makes you feel his in the flesh(predicate) involvement.  The point of view is immediate and subjective.  Looking back on his memories, he knows what is eventually going to happen to the characters.  He persuades you to sympathize with all of them.  His perception, cosmos broad and persuasive, sets the tone for the whole book.  What is the purpose of having the story told by Jim Burden thirty years later?  From that perspective he can record with great clarity and tenderness the highlights of his memories. A man of the world, he is reinvestigating his values.  Jim Burden sets down everything the name of Antonia brings back to him.  Antonia represents t o him the most fundamental, traditional way to ply ones life, including the virtues of hard work, charity, love, optimism, pride, and sympathy with nature.         The prairie makes one think of the forces of nature--immense, cyclical, and unpredictable.  When Jim Burden arrives on his grandparents farms, he is awed by the sight of nothing but land.  His parents are both(prenominal)