My antonia essays

My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a historical nonfiction book that digs into the reality of life on the frontier and farming in developing America. It shows the transition from hard life coming into America a immigrants, to the immigrants finally experiencing the American dream.

For example, southeastern Europeans such as the Bohemians, the Shimerdas are treated as if they are less white. As of today, Bohemia is part of Austria, but in the novel, the Bohemians and the Russians Peter and Pavel are treated almost like outcasts.

My Antonia is a story of how some immigrants with very little in terms of education, social status and wealth worked hard and made life decisions which ultimately turned their lives around and more importantly helped build America.

Case in point the way Jim describes Antonia on meeting her, “Her skin was brown, too, and in her cheeks, she had a glow of rich, dark colour”. According to TUNÇ , there are racial undertones in My Antonia which accurately reflects American cultural attitudes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century accurately.