"As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."
The description in this quote makes you see a beautiful country that has plenty of land and food, and is also housing people well, helping them survive. Each thing in this description explains what the country should real look like. With this description is makes you think that the novel won't have any problems at all and everything is hunky dorey.
If I came up to a place with tall bright houses, with pretty yards and kids laughing and giggling while playing with their dogs outside. I would imagine that everyone is happy and nothing can go wrong.
But then if I came upon a plavce with all dark houses, with broken windows and kids dressed in black sitting on the porch crying would make me feel sad and gloomy and think that everything is going wrong.
Monday, December 19, 2011
My Antonia: Behind The Scenes
Willa Cather suggests in her novel, "My Antonia", that she agrees that life back then was very hard if you did not have the necesssities. During that time, you needed land, know how to communicate with other farmers, money, and enough people to work your farm so that you can grow enough food to survive.
My Antonia is told in the perspective of another main character, Jim, but if the story was told in Antonia's perspective things would be different in many ways. Jim is on the richer side of it all, he was born and raised in America and had all the land for farming. Antonia was an immagrant who came with her family to America hoping to have better life. What Antonia got was a life of struggle trying to grow enough food and barely living right. If the story was told in Antonia's perspective, a lot of things that Jim did not know about Antonia would come out.
Cather being a woman does not tell the things that a man would do in the situation that Jim was in. If the author of this novel would have been a man, Jim would have acted totally different towards Antonia. The perspective of the novel is a mix of both sounding like a man writing, and sounds like a woman pretending to be a man. The perespective sounds like a man writing because of othe way that Jim did not help Antonia, but in the same way it also sounds like a woman because of the way Jim cares about Antonia.
Jim changes the title in my opinion because he understands Antonia, he knows what Antonia has gone through throughout the life that she has lived. They may have never became a "couple", but they were extremely close. Also becasue Antonia probably only actually acted a certian way towards Jim, meaning that she was his Antonia.
This novel shows the way that pioneers struggled during that time, and the hardships of being an immagrant. Willa Cather shows well how a person of Antonia and Jims caliber would handle situations. A book in Antonia's perspective would be an awesome sequel to this novel.
My Antonia is told in the perspective of another main character, Jim, but if the story was told in Antonia's perspective things would be different in many ways. Jim is on the richer side of it all, he was born and raised in America and had all the land for farming. Antonia was an immagrant who came with her family to America hoping to have better life. What Antonia got was a life of struggle trying to grow enough food and barely living right. If the story was told in Antonia's perspective, a lot of things that Jim did not know about Antonia would come out.
Cather being a woman does not tell the things that a man would do in the situation that Jim was in. If the author of this novel would have been a man, Jim would have acted totally different towards Antonia. The perspective of the novel is a mix of both sounding like a man writing, and sounds like a woman pretending to be a man. The perespective sounds like a man writing because of othe way that Jim did not help Antonia, but in the same way it also sounds like a woman because of the way Jim cares about Antonia.
Jim changes the title in my opinion because he understands Antonia, he knows what Antonia has gone through throughout the life that she has lived. They may have never became a "couple", but they were extremely close. Also becasue Antonia probably only actually acted a certian way towards Jim, meaning that she was his Antonia.
This novel shows the way that pioneers struggled during that time, and the hardships of being an immagrant. Willa Cather shows well how a person of Antonia and Jims caliber would handle situations. A book in Antonia's perspective would be an awesome sequel to this novel.
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