Willa Cather

My Antonia Willa Cather

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Jim Burden, a successful New York City attorney, gives an acquaintance a memory from his childhood in Nebraska in the form of a memento of their mutual friend, Ántonia Shimerda. This memoir makes up the bulk of the novel.

Jim first arrives in Nebraska at the age of ten, when he makes the journey west to live with his grandparents after being orphaned in Virginia. On the train to the west, Jim gets his first glimpse of the Shimerdas, a bohemian immigrant family traveling in the same direction.

As fate would have it, the Shimerdas have taken up residence on a farm near the Burdens. Jim quickly makes friends with the Shimerda children, especially Ántonia, who is closest to him in age and eager to learn English. Jim tutors Ántonia and the two of them spend much of the fall exploring their new landscape together.

At the end of January, tragedy strikes with Mr. Shimerda's suicide. After an emotional funeral, the Shimerdas retreat in despair and the Burdens struggle to be as accommodating as possible. As a result of the hardships the Shimerdas suffer, Ántonia and Jim discover that a wedge has been created between them.

A couple of years later, the Burdens decide to move to the city and soon after Ántonia takes a job as a housekeeper with a nearby family, the Harlings. Jim starts seeing Ántonia again, especially when a dancing pavilion comes to town and enlivens the social scene.

Jim's high school years quickly draw to a close and he is offered a place at Lincoln University. He makes his high school commencement speech a big hit and spends the summer at work in preparation for his course of study. Before leaving, he takes one last trip to the countryside with Ántonia and his friends, where they get together to remember the old days.

In Lincoln, Jim devotes himself to his studies, which take up most of his time in the first year and a half of his course. In the spring of his second year, he begins to see a lot of Lena Lingard, a mutual friend of him and that of Ántonia who has always intrigued Jim. After a few months of drama and flirting around town, Jim decides he needs to start over and prepares to move to Harvard University for his last two years of college.

While Jim is away, Ántonia gets engaged to a local boy and moves to Denver to be with him. A few days before the wedding, the boy - abandons Ántonia, and she returns to Nebraska with a broken heart. She covers an unexpected pregnancy throughout her term, but in giving birth to a daughter she incurs the disapproval of her family. However, she decides to take care of her baby and continues to work on the farm with her brother.

After graduating, during the summer before entering law, Jim returns to Nebraska to be with his grandparents. After learning about Ántonia's situation, he decides to go to the countryside and visit her. They spend a happy day together reliving the old days, and Jim separates from her with a promise to visit her again very soon.

Twenty years pass before Jim can visit Ántonia again. Meanwhile, he establishes himself as a prosperous New York City attorney, and Ántonia marries and has many children with a man named Cuzak, also of Bohemian descent. Jim's visit to the Cuzak farm is happy, with lots of laughs and stories. Ántonia and Jim renew their old ties and Jim decides to be in closer contact with Cuzak for years to come.

As he prepares to leave Nebraska and return to New York City, Jim walks along the outskirts of the city, near the overgrown road leading to his childhood home. At peace with himself in this familiar landscape, he feels his life has come full circle and reflects in the moonlight on all that his past with Ántonia has meant to him.