My Antonia: Gender, Values, and Experience

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My Antonia: Gender, Values, and Experience In her novel My Antonia (1995), Willa Cather shares a life story about immigrant life on a Nebraskan farm. This story focuses on gender roles, values, and experiences that the characters have. Cather uses the character, Jim Burden, to share his life story but most importantly the friendship he has with Antonia Shimerda. Every character in the story represents a gender role or the values and experiences that an immigrant has. The gender roles within this story raise questions about what the reader believes were the roles of specific people. The overall values and experiences of immigrants in the story make the story seem more realistic. The topic of gender roles appears early in the novel. Upon Jim Burden’s arrival at his grandparent’s farm, he examines his grandmother. “Her voice was high and rather shrill, and she often spoke with an anxious inflection, for she was exceedingly desirous that everything should go with due order and decorum” (Cather 10). Jim notices all the hard work that his grandmother does in the kitchen for the family (Cather 10). Jim, Jake, and Otto head out one morning to meet the Shimerda family. “When we reached the level and could see the gold tree-tops, I pointed toward them, and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how glad she was I had come” (Cather 18). This shows how close Jim and Antonia had become so quickly. As time goes on, Jim and Antonia become closer friends. We are then soon introduced to the hired girls. The hired girls were known for doing hard work on the farm, dancing the night away, and looking good all at the same time. “The country boys came in from farms eight and ten miles away, and all the country girls were on the floor—Antonia and Lena and Tiny, and the Danish laundry girls and their friends” (Cather 126). These girls were known as the “hired girls”.

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