Essay about Respect Over Passion in My Antonia by Willa...

Respect Over Passion in My Antonia Throughout the book My Antonia by Willa Cather, there is a twisting and turning of Sexual and Gender issues. There also tends to be a tension surrounding the different classes between the Black Hawk towns people, and what are called, the hired girls or the people from the country. These distinctive qualities in this novel start being shown in the very beginning or the story where Jims best-friend speaks about the life of Jim and the path with whom he chose to travel. We watch the love of Jim grow farther and farther distant due to the inevitable tensions of classes, sexuality, and gender. In the beginning of the story when Antonia and Jim are still becoming acquainted†¦show more content†¦Jim says after seeing Antonia for the first time in eight months, She had come to us as a child, and now she was a tall, strong girl...She wore the boots her father had so thoughtfully taken off before her shot himself, and his old fur cap.(pg.79) This is what Jim said she looked like. He really accentuates that Antonia was wearing her fathers clothes, masculine of course. Jim says, She kept her sleeves rolled up all day, and her arms a throat were burned as brown as a sailors. Her neck came up strongly out of her shoulders, like the bole of a tree out of the turf. One sees that draught horse neck among the peasant women in all the old countries.(pg.79) The reader begins to see the changes in Antonia as well when she speaks. She starts to talk of things that only men in those days were known to do. For example she says to Jim, Jim, you ask Jake how much he plough ed to-day. I dont want that Jake get more done in one day than me. I want we have very much corn this fall.(pg.79) Jim says that, Tony could talk of nothing but the prices of things, or how much she could lift and endure. She was too proud of her strength.(pg.81) We see the changing of places between Antonia and Jim once again. We see Jim going to school and Antonia staying and doing farm work. This scene represents aShow MoreRelatedNaturalism and Regionalism Defining through American Literature1470 Words   |  6 Pagescharacteristics of a specific region. Bret Harte and Willa Cather are regionalist authors who use the setting to put emphasis in their stories. Furthermore, Mark Twain is a naturalist writer. Twain attempts to use lower class citizens to get across a bigger point. Harte also uses minorities. However, he focuses on how the region changes these poorer citizens. Lastly, Willa Cather and Mark Twain both have their characters in pursuit of something. Cather h as her characters pursue intangible objects whileRead MoreWilla Cather s My Antonia1932 Words   |  8 Pages In her novel My Antonia, Willa Cather, while writing in a sexist time, calls attention to the power of the female in life and society through Antonia, Lena Lingard, Tiny Soderball and Frances Harling and accentuates and celebrates the significance of the matriarchal world by use of Jim Burden as the narrator. Jim holds an enlightened consciousness of the female because, after spending most of his life with these women, he sees how they started with nothing ended with a successful life. In a time