Thursday, March 17, 2011
A thread for Thursday's A block class
Explore some of the resources about Cather that you can find online--the ones I linked to on the sidebar or others you find on your own, and take notes on things you find interesting. Comment below, noting where you got your ideas from. Also, read what other people have noted. Let's have a conversation; if a topic seems really interesting, I can start a new thread about that...
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I found a quote "I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived." I think this reflects on how Cather portrays her characters, especially Antonia. Antonia thrives off life and living fully.
ReplyDeleteLike Jim, Cather seems to have had some unusual friends; in her childhood, she was apparently known for playing with her brothers and not her sisters. She also dressed more boyishly than her female counterparts. Jim plays with girls older than himself rather than boys his own age, and Black Hawk comments disparagingly on it; perhaps this fact from the book is based on Cather's own life.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
Adding to my previous comment, it is so clear that Cather puts herself into My Antonia. She was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska, where she grew up and attended college in Lincoln. Sound familiar?
ReplyDeleteRead this quote from Paula Woolley and thought it was quite interesting. "Cather's use of a male narrator as a disguise for her lesbianism"
ReplyDeleteRohan
Adding on to the previous comments, it is a little unusual for a woman to be writing from the perspective of a man. Perhaps this is why she includes the introduction with the original narrator whose gender is unknown, but then never mentions him/her again, and continues the story in the voice of a male.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading into the biographical history of Willa Cather, I came across sever interesting points. Just like Jim in My Ántonia, Cather moved from Virginia to Nebraska at a young age. In addition, both Cather and Jim attended college at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. While growing up, Cather was intensely moved by the dramatic environment and weather, and the various cultures of the American and immigrant families in the area. Perhaps, her experiences growing up in Nebraska was the source of inspiration in My Ántonia.
ReplyDelete"Jim describes Ántonia in masculine terms: her voice is "deep, a little husky," and he refers to her by her male nickname, Tony." - Rohan
ReplyDeleteSomething I found interesting was that in the National Endowment for the Arts article about My Antonia, they describe Jim as fleeing to Boston to avoid a relationship with Lena. It's interesting how Jim starts by living a more urban life, quickly switching over to a more rural life for his teenage years, and eventually returning to an urban setting. The idea of where does Jim consider to be home come up, as whether at heart he is truly at home in a more populous area or in the countryside.
ReplyDelete-Ben H
Apparently in a newspaper publication, Willa Cather stated that her arrival in Nebraska, with no trees, after being in Virginia for so long, evoked a a sense of an "erasure of personality." This is another aspect of Cather's life clearly expanded upon during My Antonia, such as the passage at the end of chapter one where Jim comments on the nothingness he finds in Nebraska.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
I found an essay which proposes that Cather set up My Antonia, as a novel full of loss and seperation. Jim had his parents but they died and he had them no more. Jim was with antonia but ultimately was seperated from her as well. And also taking in to account the myriad of of characters which seem to meander in and out of the story, sometimes showing up like Lena, but sometimes vanishing forever like the Russian brothers. This may have something to do with her self imposed isolation from the rest of the world.
ReplyDelete--Nathan R.
Willa Cather seems to love, and show frequent affection for her home on the prairie. This love originates from the move of her own family in 1883 to frontier Nebraska.Heavily frequently other writers we have read (Mark Twain) they re-explore there child hoods romantically in their work.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a biography on Cather and My Antonia's history, I very much agree that the novel is based on her own life. It states that Cather moved twice, both moves ending a chapter of her life and causing nostalgia. Also, Cather reportedly wrote to Dorothy Canfield Fisher that her marriage would "bring about an amazing change in her life, and on the best terms she could figure out, it would be a devastating loss." Perhaps this foreshadows Antonias marriage. Although she has a great loss (losing her husband), she also has a great joy, her daughter. The parallels are endless...
ReplyDeleteJamie
I thought Ben's commment was really interesting, on where Jim feels at home. He often expresses feeling great emotion when out in the country, but it is unclear whether he prefers this over an urban setting.
ReplyDeleteI find the argument that there are vibrant narrators and life-draining voices quite interesting. There seems to be a contrast between the feminine voices (Antonia, Lena, Camille actress, Blind d'Arnault) that celebrate life and the suicidal men (Mr. Shimerda, Mr. Cutter) who attempt to control or ease harshness and die as a result.
ReplyDeleteNina
In response to Rohan's quote, Cather's Wikipedia page says that she often went by her male nickname, "William", just like Antonia and Tony.
ReplyDeleteWilla Cather died at the age of 73 due to a cerebral hemorrhage, which is an intercranial hematoma that occurs within the brain itself, as a result of trauma to the brain or spontaneously due to stroke.
ReplyDeleteUnlike many authors we've read, Willa Cather was very well known and admired during her time. She received an unbelievable amount of recognition, including honorary degrees from University of Nebraska, University of Michigan, Columbia, Yale, University of California at Berkely, Princeton (the first woman to do so) and Smith College, along with numerous other medals.
ReplyDeleteBut it's not like all this happened with ease. Cather had a difficult time trying to catch the attention of others because she was a female in a male dominated industry. Because as much as we put emphasis on books as these beacons of hope brimming with magic, we tend to forget that at the end of the day, it all boils down to the money. You won't get published if you can't grab a publishers' attention and if you somehow do, your first novel better be a huge hit if you hope to get put out anther book.
So I applaud Cather's resilience and admire her eventual success. Anyone weaker would've quit much more easily.
It never seemed odd to me until reading some of other people's views on the book that Cather uses a male narrator to show the life of a slightly masculine woman.
ReplyDeleteKasra's comment is legit
ReplyDeleteCather seems to switch back and forth between supporting a masculine voice (in Antonia) and contrasting feminine narrations to depressed male ones.
ReplyDeleteWilla Cather was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1962, joining the likes of William Jennings Bryan, Red Cloud, and Susette LaFlesche Tibbles.
ReplyDeleteKasra wins comment of the year award
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that one of the critics said that all the women in the novel become more positive and independent throughout the story. The critic said this demonstrated through their speech, for early in the novel Lena and Antonia would say things like, "I can't do this". However, as the novel progressed they became much more positive in their responses. This left me wondering has Jim became more negative and less confident during the course of the novel. Henry
ReplyDeleteI (Bryan) believe that the perception that Cather puts herself into this book is a stretch. Yes, she was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska, but who cares? Her father wasn't a farmer, he worked in the real estate and insurance business. She attended school and aspired to become a science major, although she ended up getting her degree in English. If she were to chose a character who reflected herself, it would be Jim. However, Jim's parents passed away and Cather was raised with two parents on a land that was given to them by her grandparents. Cather's "masculinity" as a child insists that she wants Jim to reflect herself but I still think that the attempt to connect the book to Cather is a lost cause. The book is centered on the confusing relationship between Jim and Antonia. Despite their current status, who thinks that they will have a romantic relationship in the future? I do. If not, this book would be a disappointment.
ReplyDelete"Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
ReplyDeleteClearly she is trying to hold onto her memories and cherish them in My Antonia
Going back to what Rohan said, Cather's use of a male narrator was apparently considered daring at the time; some saw it as reactionary, and others as promoting women's liberation.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
The beginning of the essay on cather.net talks about Antonia as an artist and Jim's denial of her artistic abilities. This was representative of the time in which Cather was a writer during which the writing and publishing world was dominated by men and their norms. Cather longed for acceptance so she could not deviate far from tradition, and so made Jim the artist because he was the storyteller and Antonia his muse. Looking deeper, this is not true because Antonia and other artists that were not white males, such as Lena the dressmaker with "style" and Blind d'Arnault the pianist, were able to find success and defy the standards of the world, which Cather was doing by masquerading her novel behind Jim's life story, which arguably was not as successful as those of his old friends. - Olga
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that we are finding parallels between both Antonia and Willa Cather and also Jim and Willa Cather. With this in mind, I'm continuing to wonder who the voice is behind the frame/introduction of the novel...who is speaking and what is the importance of the intro? When I began reading the book, I immediately assumed that the introduction was coming from Cather's voice. It's confusing that aspects of Cather's personality and events from her life are appearing in other characters, leaving us to wonder who this mysterious introduction writer and what her significance is.
ReplyDelete-Elena
I LOVE ROHAN
ReplyDeleteI dislike the way critics pull out only specific sentences to support some random accusations. "use Jim's voice to disguise lesbianism" is just such a random and horrid thing to say. "Feminine" is also used by multiple critics to attack Cather.
ReplyDeleteOne critic attributed Lena's dressmaking to Cather's attitude towards feminine attire. Like seriously. How can a author write a proper novel if every single character and their lives are being scrutinized and used as a weapon to attack the author. Cutter is attributed to patriarchal power because of his actions.
Tell me, why can't everyone just treat the book as it really is: an awesome novel that invokes passion in the readers. Stop calling Cather a lesbian or feminist or whatever.
Interesting view of relationships in My Antonia:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antonia.gif
I found it interesting that for me at least the story stayed light and so nostalgic, looking back on a beautiful past that cannot be regained with longing, despite all of the shockingly violent events that occur. Mr. Shimerda's suicide, the Cutter murders, the histories of Peter and Pavel, and other events hint towards a dark undertone of hidden pain and insanity, that somehow does not affect the overall feeling of the novel.
ReplyDeleteSTOP TROLLING ON THIS FORUM GAWD.
ReplyDeleteAlso in response to Nathan R's comment...
ReplyDeleteI read part of that article too, and was thinking that maybe the continuous loss faced by Jim and other characters represents Cather's ultimate love for the land. Amongst all the loss faced by characters, the land is still there. Also, Jim expresses nostalgia for the land, but never expresses nostalgia for his life in Virginia, when his parents were alive.
-Elena
One book on Cather suggests that the numerous failed relationships in her work were perhaps reflective of her own life; her great female "friend," Isabelle McClung, got married to a concert violinist shortly after the death of her father; Cather had to find another place to live, as she had been living with the McClung family.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
I agree with Elena that it is quite interesting to see the parallels between Cather and her character Jim. Cather had a Bohemian girl named Anna work near her when she lived in Nebraska. She was fascinated by this girl and said in an interview in 1921 that this girl was one of the most interesting people she knew as a kid. The girl, Anna, complained upon publication of the book that Cather was publicly showing her poverty to the world. Interesting enough, Anna also was abandoned by a possible husband and left pregnant and alone. The book parallels her life to a large extent.
ReplyDeleteSydney
Henry is not a ptp, and or a scholar.
ReplyDeleteElena's comment on how he is never nostalgic for his hometown in Virginia is something I'd never really thought of before. Is Antonia the reason he is so attached to the plains of Nebraska?
ReplyDeleteAdding to what Sarah said about the narrator of the introduction never identifying their gender, I read the original introduction that was included in the back of my book, which was much longer and more detailed, and in it the narrator identified themselves as "a little girl who had watched [Ántonia] come and go". Maybe in the original it was meant to be Nina?
ReplyDeleteTsi Yu's comment- I don't think all of the critics are being negative when they call her lesbian. She probably was
ReplyDeleteTsi Yu,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think that she can not be a lesbian? Perhaps she is both Jim and Antonias character...creating a confused world...
i believe jim got it in with both anotina and lena at the same time
ReplyDeleteTo me, the entire book could be a nostalgic love letter to the West. I think it encapsulates some of the general feelings in society at this time of trying to get back to the old America, one without so many immigrants, whom many of the inhabitants of the US, fairly new to the country themselves, rejected. There was a national sense of nostalgia for the romanticized western frontier, adventure, opportunity, and "real" masculinity. I think that the most emotional, passionate passages in the book are not describing people, but the land. We get almost no description of Jim, and little of most of the other characters, but Cather lavishes imagery on the landscape of Nebraska. I think that this novel is in some ways about Cather's own deep love for the land of the west.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading an excerpt from an academic essay by Sharon O'Brien, I now have some possible insight into the psyche of college-age Jim. I don't know if I necessary agree with the sentiments made by O'Brien but the accusation that Jim is a misogynist certainly portrays him a new light. O'Brien says that when Lena visits Jim in Lincoln and divulges about the success of her new business, Jim is in disbelief and accuses that her clients are ignorant and her success is illegitimate. He also uses Lena as a source of muse for his own successes instead of acknowledging that females can be independent and self-sufficient. One justification for Jim's actions can be credited to his inherently weak personality. Perhaps he feels overshadowed and embarrassed that Lena is more successful than him.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Sorry for the typos in my last post. I forgot to proof-read it...oops
Yeah Tracey, Nina is a good guess, especially since it's kind of implied that Jim knew Antonia much better than the original narrator.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bryan's comment that Cather is not necessarily placing herself in the novel. While there are elements that would seem to be similar to her own life, that could merely be Cather writing about things important in her life, not about her life.
ReplyDelete-Ben H
I read that Cather had a fascination with a Bohemian hired girl that worked for her neighbors when she was a child. That girl's name was Anna Sadilek and her descendants got angry at Cather for describing their family's poverty. I am wondering what made Anna so interesting and why Cather chose her as the basis for Antonia's character. I actually find it kind of high and mighty of Cather to do this because she comes from the the middle class if not the upper middle class, but at the same time, she did not portray poor immigrants in a completely bad light either.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing is Cather's inspiration for Antonia; according to a biography of Cather, she stated that she wanted Antonia to be like "a rare object in the middle of a table, that one may examine from all sides," and that "I want her to stand out...because she is the story." In my personal opinion, although Antonia is an interesting character, I found some of the supporting characters, such as Lena, to be just as interesting, and Antonia is absent for large portions of the book. With this in mind, it seemed a little strange to me that the book was named after and focused on Antonia, when she did not have as large an impact on Jim's life as some other characters.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
According to Wikipedia, Cather had been writing novels for several years before the publishing of My Antonia, none of which were highly acclaimed. My Antonia seems largely to be seen as her "first masterpiece".
ReplyDeleteI saw an interesting idea in the article "Fire and Wit." The author sugested that Cather always loved telling stories but because of the time period she couldn't write the book in a female voice, so wrote it in Jim's voice with an underlying story told by Antonia. The author said that if you read the book focusing mainly on Antonia, it is a story of Antonia's growth and development not only as a girl to a woman, but as a growing storyteller and artist.
ReplyDelete-Sydney
Sarah's comment: I agree that Antonia probably plays a big part in Jim's attachment to Nebraska. I think this because when he visits her he keeps having memories of them playing together when they are younger
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Ben because it seems clear that Cather had a real interest in Bohemians, and so I think this is her way of showing that without coming out and directly saying that she finds lower class people intriguing.
ReplyDelete-Sydney
Actually, I the further I read this essay on Cather and Anna, I see that it was not high and mighty of Cather to base the book off of Anna because she was showing the world an uncommon view in literature, that of the lower class, while respecting Anna as an artist, which she translated over to Antonia. So, even though Anna's family was ashamed of this, Cather meant to represent them as people with worth despite their hardships at the beginning of their time in America and the prairie. - Olga
ReplyDeleteIn response to Sydney's comment, maybe Cather thought her book would be taken more seriously if written from the perspective of a man, and this was the only way to show Antonia's story while maintaining a good reputation.
ReplyDeletei wonder why Cather wrote an initial introduction that appeared in the 1918 edition of her book, but then changed it to the one that is included in later versions, especially if the first one contained more information. maybe she wanted the first narrator to be a more ambiguous character. but it does seem odd to change the introduction of a book after it has already been published.
ReplyDeleteCather lived with a woman for 37 years...in multiple apartments. And left the same woman in her will for the apartment.
ReplyDeleteCather was apparently so upset over a movie made about her novel, "A Lost Lady," that she vowed not to allow any more adaptations in the future. This seemed a little strange to me because no matter how terribly horrific the movie was, she should've just taken it as a compliment, that someone out there admired her work enough to spend so much time transferring it to another medium.
ReplyDeleteThis whole books-movies thing definitely has its pros and cons. Looking at other examples, I feel like while the vast majority of novels do trump their movie counterparts, there are definitely times when a movie enriches something that a book cannot.
For example, with the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, I loved all the novels when I was a kid. I was skeptical about seeing the movie versions, but I'm glad I did. There's something about seeing action as it happens that books can't replicate. This is no attack on J.R.R. Tolkein either, who was a very accomplished writer.
But what I dislike even more than terrible adaptations of novels are reactionary people who are stuck on the "books are always better" theory.
I (Bryan) have yet to find any form of complexity in this book. Most of what I have noticed is relationships between characters and how people change in relation to the way society and their enviorment changes. Has anybody noticed any complexity in this book so far?
ReplyDeleteIn response to Catherine, I found it interesting that Cather throughout most of the novel needed to have that feminine character juxtapose to Jim's "masculine" character. Whether it was Lena or Antonia. So maybe Antonia was only part of the novel, or a less important part than we are led to believe. -- Nathan
ReplyDeleteIn response to Tsi Yu's comment, it's not clear that it's an "attack" on Cather to say that she might have been gay, or that she might have been a feminist. At that time you sort of had to be partly a feminist rebel if you were a woman and wanted to have a career. While Cather was in many ways quite conservative, and (among other things) voted for Republicans even through the Roosevelt years, she was also pretty clearly a "feminist" insofar as she thought women should be able to have independent lives. As for the lesbian question, we really don't know how Cather thought about it, but she certainly had her closest relationships with women and lived with close women friends...
ReplyDeleteOne literary critic believes that Jim's slaying of the snake is tied to the symbolism of St. George killing the dragon, bringing the story back to its European roots.
ReplyDelete- Catherine
Joseph Meeker makes an interesting comparison between the prairie dog town which Jim and Antonia visit and the living conditions of the pioneers themselves. He explains that "an orderly and very sociable kind of life was going on" rather than the human pioneers, many of whom also lived underground or in sod huts. What is Cather trying to say about the characters and their families here? --Rohan
ReplyDeleteIn reaction to Sarah/Elena's comment..
ReplyDeleteI'd never really thought about that either. The things Cather makes Jim value seem rather small in the scheme of things. In the beginning he's very observational and clearly embraces the vast nothiningness of the country, yet he goes on to the town and city, clearly enjoying it, but never having the same transendeltalist moments
I agree with Catherine; Antonia didn't really play a big part in Jim's life and only pops up at certain occasions. I found it interesting that Cather decided to include details about the lives of the other bohemian girls
ReplyDeleteReading the article which speaks of Jim's sexism and inability to overcome his physical attraction to Lena. Though this argument is definitely based in fact, it seems to be somewhat of a stretch. Though the time period, and especially the West was a heavily sexist culture, to see Jim as a single minded sexist seems bordering on mania. Jim was almost certainly bewitched be Lena's physical appearance, but his emotional bond and their corresponding friendship is not based on appearances.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Olga. Antonia is much stronger than Jim. Cather is not saying that she is poor and therefore weak- it is quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Cather's use of a male narrator is revolutionary at all. It is just a reflection of the sad truth that if the same story had been from a female point of view, people would probably find it wierd and offensive. That's why its so obvious that Cather is in Jim. Today if she wrote it, it could have been a woman and a book about an openly Lebsian character.
ReplyDeleteBryan makes an interesting point yet the various shot stories and few physical descriptions of characters make it rather complex. Henry
ReplyDeleteOne thing I have wondered about is why Jim, as an adult, has decided to live in cities, when as a child he seemed to find himself on the prairies, and feel at ease and awed by them. He quickly becomes habituated to town life, but as the nostalgic sun and plow scene shows, he (and all the farm girls) has a longing for his farm and the frontier life he has left behind. Perhaps this functions to set Antonia up as an even more powerful symbol or figure for the land, a girl described as "mean[ing] to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood" in the introduction. Throughout the book, Antonia's fate seems to loosely mirror that of the land; she is first a wild girl, touched by loss, with a certain harsh beauty, and is then civilized and changed by society. Finally, she is "degraded", but remains strong, and never loses the one inexplicable thing that made her so fascinating. The land was also once an untamed thing, but has been manipulated and fenced in, free no longer. Yet the flowing land keeps its integrity and its power to inspire.
ReplyDeleteSomething I found described in one of the literary articles we looked at in class was how Cather includes multiple stories within her own: personal histories, surprising events, futures, and folk tales. The article described how Cather was underscoring the relationship between the folk story and the novel, low art versus high art. However, what that argument made me realize is that Cather almost never lets a story remain unfinished; people fade off into the distance as they grow up, move away, or are left behind, but never before we get their life's story. Before Pavel dies and Peter moves away, Jim and Ántonia learn why they left their homeland, Tiny Soderball's future is exposed just after she leaves, we learn the Cutter's fates at the end of the novel in a rather random interjection into the story with detail so in depth it seems awkward. Even Ántonia's story is concluded in a polished way, although it is not an ending that matches the initial expectations of the book (or at least, mine). Maybe this is just an aspect of Jim's narration as a man in his forties who already knows all of what happened to everyone, but looking at Cather's motivations for doing this, it seems to me that she felt the need to conclude every string she started or finished. For an author who modeled much of her early works after those of Henry James, the master of showing in place of telling, she frequently launched into long exposes that did, in their own right, exhibit much, but which still seem to tell a bit too much.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find this book interesting because it jumps from one story to another. I like the way the book talks about Antonia, then Lena, etc. Each chapter seems to bring a new story. This is a refreshing way of reading a book, since other books are usually long winded and follow a single theme throughout the entire book, and throws a relentless and copious amount of information at the reader about that singular topic. My Antonia gives the reader a new perspective of Jim in each part of the book, and thus brings variety into the book.
ReplyDelete