Welcome!
As you read Willa Cather's novel, I will post some of my thoughts, and I will post some of your thoughts, as well. Feel free to comment on any post, but please be thoughtful and considerate when you do, and please don't comment anonymously. --EC
I looked up some facts about Willa Cather. She was known to wear masculine clothing. I see this as a connection to why she decided to have the character "Jim" narrate her own story. She probably felt a deeper connection to "Jim" on some level than she did herself.
ReplyDeleteCody Tipton
The comment above was from wikipedia and my mind.
ReplyDeleteCody Tipton
"While Cather enjoyed the novels of George Eliot, the Brontes, and Jane Austen, she regarded most women writers with disdain, judging them overly sentimental and mawkish." It is quite ironic such a prominent female writer finds fellow woman noveltists in an era where there were so few to be oversentimental. Maybe it is her resentment of oversentiment by other female writers that contributed to her supressed method of emotion in the novel: by showing instead of telling, leaving the reader with merely the ability to infer.
ReplyDeleteDid you guys know that Willa Cather in 1986 was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame?
ReplyDeleteTalk about crazy
Well, *puts on monocle and speaks in a posh English accent* It appears that her mother tried to "lady-i-fy" her, even though she cut her hair short and wore clothes of the opposing sex. I do not know if perhaps she did this to rebel against her mother, or just spited the status quo in general.
ReplyDeleteAt the University of Nebraska, Cather used to wear men's clothing and go by the name "William."
ReplyDeleteAmina
why did she change her name from willela to willa? why did she change her year of birth?
ReplyDeleteCathers father was a farmer and did not do that well so the family moved to another city.
ReplyDeleteThis is really cool cause its just like Jim's family in the book
"Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke." Willa Cather
ReplyDeleteDid Willa Cather hate other women?
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/willa_cather.html#ixzz1Gy3p15Jc
hey guys i have a cool fact Willa had a dream of having a career i science when she was brainwashed by Darwin's theory
ReplyDeleteI found the following quote from http://cather.unl.edu/cs003_fire.html: "... Cather often expressed her admiration of oral storytelling and other forms of folk or "low" art..."
ReplyDeleteThis seemed really strange to me, because "folksy" art is typically very tied to the land and agriculture, which is what Cather glorifies in the first "book" of the novel. Maybe this has something to do with Elijah's fact that Cather's father was a farmer and didn't do well - perhaps she still thinks of the land as something very special, but associates negative things with art associated with farming because she remembers it as a bad point in her life?
One website talked about Cather writing the book because of her journey from Virginia to Nebraska when she was a kid and her describing everything she noticed. May she have also been like her narrator Jim as a younger child?
ReplyDelete-CQ Alonzo
Cather left for the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where she hoped to become a doctor. That goal changed when her first English professor submitted her essay on Carlyle to the Lincoln Journal and the paper published it--Cather later recalled it was at that moment she decided to become a writer.
ReplyDelete...yet Willa Cather also said:
ReplyDelete"The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor."
My Antonia seems almost like a journal. As a 9 year old her family relocated her to the prairie and she had trouble adjusting. They referred to the land as "all-encompassing land", but she developed a "fierce passion for the land". I think that Willia used Jim as a way to express her feelings about her experiences as a girl
ReplyDeleteCather was against war and most of the industrial materialism that was developing in the early 20th century. This connects to the fact that Antonia never really moves to the city and stays on the farm.
ReplyDeleteCody Tipton
via
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/wcather.htm and my mind
along with what cody said cather states that she gives her male roles in the book female attitudes and interests. I think this is her trying to say that maybe she is trapped in the wrong body or something and that this is the only way that it is ok for her to express it. Her writing saved her from people finding out who she really wanted to be.
ReplyDelete-Erin
does any one know if her Cerebral hemorrhage was caused by brain trauma or did it can occur spontaneously?
ReplyDeleteCather told her friend she wants her character to be based on a jar of orange-brown flowers in the middle of an antique table. Cather wants her readers to examine Antonia from all sides. I think this means its okay if everyone has very different outputs on who Antonia is.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that Cather actually based her Antonia on a hired Bohemian girl from her childhood, Anna, whose family later objected when the book came out because it so clearly described their early poverty. I wonder how much of this book is based on Cather's own experiences.
ReplyDeleteLike Jim, Cather moved from Virginia to Nebraska at a young age. However their experience was very differemt. Cather went by wagon in the 1800s. Jim went by train. Jim travelled alone because his parents died. Cather moved with her entire family. Cather wanted to write My Antonia drawing on her own experiences, but she had to alter the story because the world had changed sooo much by that
ReplyDeleteDANIEL meyer
I read a few of the sources listed on the sidebar, and I'm beginning to wonder- sort of in response to Gabriel's post- if Cather wanted to make a character be like she is in real life. Antonia is known in the book to be manly and strong. Apparently, in real life, Cather dressed like a guy. I wonder what other similarities & differences there are between Antonia and Willa Cather.
ReplyDeleteAlso, did you guys know that there's a state historical site in her honor? It's in Nebraska and has her writing and notes available for people to see.
To Amanda-
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that Cather included many details of her life in this book.'
Cody Tipton
My antonia was her most famous book but the story doesnt address the main lesbian or sex issues that go on in her other books.
ReplyDeletehttp://kirjasto.sci.fi/wcather.htm
-Erin
Cather admired Henry James as a "mighty master of language and keen student of human actions and motives."
ReplyDeleteAccording to http://cather.unl.edu/life.longbio.html, it was seeing her name in print that changed her ambition from being a scientist to being an author. She was also known as a "meat-ax critic" because of her sharp tongue and pen, which seems out-of-keeping with the "Ohio old lady's reading club author" image she has.
ReplyDeleteCather often used events in her life as the basis for events in her books, such as the suicide of her brother relating to the suicide of Mr. Shimerdas.
ReplyDeleteHer middle name was Sibert
ReplyDeletethe town black hawk is named after a town she grew up in Red Cloud.......
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't notice Cather life is very similar to Jim
ReplyDeletelike many other people have stated i noticed that her life story was like Jim's. maybe she did that on purpose
ReplyDelete“Her style has lost self-consciousness; her feeling for form has become instinctive. And she has got such a grip upon her materials. … I know of no novel that makes the remote folk of the Western prairies more real … and I know of none that makes them seem better worth knowing.”
ReplyDeleteHer loss of self-consciousness allowed her to write unorthodox ideas which made her descriptions more real and worth knowing to the public. The passion in her writing showed with her instinctive form
Wikipedia says... "A resolutely private person, Cather had destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will restricted the ability of scholars to quote from those personal papers that remain. Since the 1980s, feminist and other academic writers have -->explored Cather's sexual orientation and the influence of her female friendships on her work.<--"
ReplyDeleteWilla Cathers attitude towards women seems to have a strong influence on her work. What kind of impact did her female friends have on her?
Cathers story of growing up in Virginia, the moving to Nebraska, then moving to the city part of Nebraska, and attending college there, mirrors the story of Jim. Also the families she meets in the city are like the characters she describes in My Antonia including the Harlings and the Shimerdas.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that she was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of fame in 1962?
ReplyDeleteTalk about crazy
"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."
ReplyDeleteThis is a possible explanation for Antonia's resignation for farmwork despite her dream of other things. Perhaps it is an expression of Cather resigning to be a writer despite her dreams of science and other things?
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/willa_cather.html#ixzz1Gy6ZyLFi
Because Willa Cather based Antonia off of a jar of orange-brown flowers, Antonia's internal thoughts were opaque (like the flowers) and we can only attempt to disect her inner mind. However, Antonia is also very open with her emotions just as the vase of a jar of flowers is transparent.
ReplyDeleteJonny, can you explain more about her cerebral hemorrhage? Or at least post a link? I r is much 2 lazy 2 l00k 4 mys3lf
ReplyDeleteBLAME CQ FOR THE FUNNY
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://entertainmentrealm.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/willa_cather.jpg&imgrefurl=http://entertainmentrealm.com/category/books/page/12/&usg=__TFriAFeGge5M4A5JkE7pCffkHck=&h=471&w=376&sz=48&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=UmVBjviDJCbOTM:&tbnh=151&tbnw=128&ei=3YODTZXKKYbcgQeb_6nbCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dinteresting%2Bfacts%2Bwilla%2Bcather%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1535%26bih%3D798%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C7&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=360&oei=3YODTZXKKYbcgQeb_6nbCA&page=1&ndsp=33&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0&tx=79&ty=38&biw=1535&bih=798
ReplyDeleteCather's family, like Jim's, moved from the countryside into a nearby town of a similar sized to Black Hawk.
ReplyDeleteThe intro is similar to that of "The Scarlet Letter," and Jim's character and the language of the novel has very clear parallels to "Huck Finn"
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com/books?id=aJOHUMGuIhYC&pg=PR1&dq=%22new+essays+on+my+antonia%22&hl=en&ei=XF2BTb29HIWO0QG6xbHyCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=true
-Benny
^ :)
ReplyDeleteLooking at these anti-feminist actions taken by Cather, do you think that she became more masculine to be accepted by society when she wanted to become a surgeon? And, while doing so, perhaps she got the impression that emulating men in a male-dominated society yielded more opportunities than living as a woman. Or do you guys think that she was simply going against the social norm for women by sporting a mustache?
ReplyDeleteWilla Cather had huge responsibilities as a the eldest of seven children. This connection from her own life could possibly be visible in her descriptions of the independence, and sense of responsibility that Àntonia takes on.
ReplyDeleteHere You go Gabriel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willa_Cather
ReplyDeleteweird fact when she attended the University of Nebraska, she sometimes wore men's clothing and used the nickname "William"
ReplyDeleteSHE HAD A TWIN BROTHER WILLIAM CATHER
ReplyDeleteit seems that Cather throughout her life had may emotional relationships with both men and women. i wonder if her stories reflect any of this. i also wonder about why Cather wrote about the black musician in such a awful manner.
ReplyDeleteThats weird, she used her brother's name
ReplyDeleteto sabina**
ReplyDeletewas cather frowned upon as her female role?
-Erin
Kinda funny considering that Willa Cather went by 'William'.... i think this is when she was in college?
ReplyDeleteCather also frequently attended the theater in her town, just like Lena and Jim
ReplyDelete@Sabina: ...Whuuuuut? o.o. She really had a twin?
ReplyDeleteto shaquira, we think that is a good possibilty,maybe Cather based her book on her life on purpose, because she wants her readers to know more about her
ReplyDeleteDid you know Cather entered the University of Nebraska in 1895 disguised as her fictional twin brother, William Cather.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.enotes.com/authors/willa-cather
Cather was a tomboy as a child. Also...
ReplyDelete"The writer Sarah Orne Jewett (a lesbian) advised Cather to leave McClure's to focus on her writing."
Cather was the eldest of seven children, so she may have modeled Lena Lindgard after herself. However, Lena is very feminine, while Cather was not. Is this an expression of Cather's aspirations, or was she trying to make Lena into something very different?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/cather1.htm
Interesting how she grew up with her grandmother... so did Jim
ReplyDeleteSo what your saying is..she has a twin brother?
ReplyDeleteOOOMMMGG SHE HAS A TWIN BROTHER :O
ReplyDeletei think she grew up as a tomboy from growing up on the farm scene just like antonia who would rather work on the farm then be in the kitchen
ReplyDeleteCather was friends with many muckrakers of the Progressive movement
ReplyDeletedaniel MEYER
Cather values art that conveys unembellished emotion, do you guess get the sense of unembellished emotion when reading My Antonia?
ReplyDeleteHarry's comment is smart. It does seem like despite the fact that the book is about Antonia, it only expresses Jim's thoughts on Antonia, not antonia's thoughts on herself. It's more about Jim's relationship with Antonia than Antonia's relationship with Jim.
ReplyDeletewilla cather did not like the overly sentimental and mawkish descriptions, even though she did enjoy the works of Jane Austen and Emily Bronte who could be seen as romantic writers.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYou used the wrong 'your.' Please fix for future reference.
@Chris: Yes!
"She had first arrived at the University dressed as William Cather, her opposite sex twin."
http://www.uic.edu/depts/quic/history/willa_cather.html
Ok, My Ántonia is pretty much an autobiography
ReplyDelete-jesse
56th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference:her relationship to the popular culture of her day...
ReplyDelete"Cather regularly engaged with the trendy, the famous, and the celebrated."
There's Annual Willia Cather Spring Conferences!!?!
To maria - No.
ReplyDeleteI think that it just looks embellished on the front, but there are definite signs of emotion in the actually landscape and dialogue
Matt yes people are saying she has a twin brother (however it may be a joke). No point in posting as anonymous
ReplyDeleteDid Cather perhaps put herself more into the character Antonia than Jim? Are the characters both each representing different elements of herself?
ReplyDeleteDANiel MEyer
What I find really interesting is that, according to Wikipedia, Cather "had destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will restricted the ability of scholars to quote from those personal papers that remain." It seems like she was trying to hide her personal life, yet we can see that My Antonia is based on many events in her life.
ReplyDeletethe embellished emotion is noticed in her romanticized descriptions of the prairie, the feelings of Jim, the descriptions of nature around her, and the actions of Antonia
ReplyDeleteok... does she have a real twin brother or not?!!??
ReplyDeleteInteresting for Mr Colburn and other people who like to read into details way too much:
ReplyDelete"Willa Cather's reputation as one of America's finest novelists rests on her novels about Nebraska and the American Southwest. These novels express her deep love of the land and her distaste for the materialism and conformism of modern life. Devoted to values such as the importance of family and the need for human courage and dignity, [Cather] created strong female characters whose sort of strength and determination had previously been attributed only to men."
http://www.ibiblio.org/cheryb/women/Willa-Cather.html
@Dalia: Yes, she had a real twin brother.
ReplyDeleteIs Lena supposed to be a castrating figure in the dream? If so, Jim doesn't notice, what is Cather then trying to imply?
ReplyDelete-Benny
Cather was A lover of life, Cather is quoted as saying, “I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.”
ReplyDeleteUh, don't know what you're talking about Jonathan. Please keep these posts about Cather. kthx
ReplyDelete@Dalia, nope, she doesn't, she made him up to imposterfy him.
ReplyDeleteCather believed in miracles. This is interesting, because she seems to be much more interested in realities.
ReplyDeleteCody Tipton
It is strange that Jim has a life that is more similar to Willa Cather (moving from Virginia to a prairie), but Antonia seems to be more similar to Cather internally (boylike and strong).
ReplyDeleteTo clarify on Willa's twin brother..
ReplyDeleteMary Cather had six more children after Willa: Roscoe, Douglass, Jessica, James, John, and Elsie.[3] Cather was closest to her brothers, less close to her sisters whom, according to her biographer Hermoine Lee, Cather "seems not to have liked very much"
Thank you Wikipedia.
That was discovered from https://gustavus.edu/english/cather/quotations.html.
ReplyDelete(My last post)
Cody Tipton
I apologize Matt. In 1981, the U.S. Mint created the Willa Cather half-ounce gold medallion.
ReplyDeleteTalk about crazy Matthew!
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://writershouses.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cathers-home-glover6.10.jpg&imgrefurl=http://writershouses.com/%3Fguest%3Dthe-lesbian-ghosts-of-red-cloud-nebraska&usg=__f0BrN9bHVQCKx9cCQskroNqvpcE=&h=540&w=720&sz=116&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=KR7YdENrIxCQEM:&tbnh=156&tbnw=209&ei=5IeDTeSaCIaV0QHjhbjICA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwilla%2Bcather%2Bhomes%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1216%26bih%3D831%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=585&vpy=293&dur=656&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=183&ty=118&oei=5IeDTeSaCIaV0QHjhbjICA&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0
ReplyDeleteIn the article "It Ain't My Prairie" Gender, Power and Narrative in My Antonia by Marilee Lindemann, the author argues that Cather uses Jim as a vessel not only to disguise he sexuality but also to express her own sexuality. " ...a story of a woman (Cather) figuring a man (Jim Burden) figuring a woman." She also argues that Cather's descriptions of Lena in the later chapters and the similarities between her and Jim are more evidence of Cather's sexuality. Although Cather never openly stated being gay, she never married, she lived with a female editor Edith Lewis for 39 years. Despite this there is a large group of scholars that openly deny any claims that Cather was a lesbian. Some argue that her constant ridicule of feminist of her time is proof of her sexuality. -Nigel
ReplyDelete"Jim's slaughter of the rattlesnake resembles the dirty political reality in which his future employer, the railroad, was complicit. In other words, Jim's vicious beating and near beheading of the aged sidewinder corresponds to the manner in which the U.S. military and railway industry colluded to eliminate Native American claims to territory in the Central Great Plains."
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really interesting use of symbolism.
talk about crazy
ReplyDeleteThe last comment was by me.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you doing tonight maria?
ReplyDeleteWAIT NOT THE LAST ONE - THE ONE BY L.
ReplyDeleteBut in all honesty, why is Cather's sexual orientation at all important? I'm sure she wasn't the first potentially lesbian American author.
ReplyDelete*her correction of first sentence on my previous post
ReplyDeleteJust a little fun fact I think.
ReplyDeleteyeah, walt whitman's sexuality was also questioned. i know he's a man, im just drawing a parallel
ReplyDeleteBut this sexual orientation is a part of her identity, which influences her writing and possibly Antonia's character.
ReplyDeleteResponse to Sabina
ReplyDeleteHer sexuality is not truly important but there is still a scholarly argument within the community. Some authors find it so important as to write large articles about it. I found it interesting that it was such a big deal.
So is our opinions, it effects anything we write.
ReplyDeleteEven shakespeare was considered gay by some, I guess that people make a living by finding this point and exploiting people's curiosity of the topic. It is strange how an author could become so controversial when they don't openly state their sexuality.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nea.gov/av/images/WillaCather.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nea.gov/av/avCMS/my-antonia-text.html&usg=__xcQrm2CqDrnSCrkCdTuWfGHcYw8=&h=323&w=250&sz=35&hl=en&start=28&zoom=1&tbnid=nnH8B_01oyU9ZM:&tbnh=163&tbnw=128&ei=SYuDTZr_IIzqgQeEiLXLCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwilla%2Bcather%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1192%26bih%3D793%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C353&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=438&oei=I4uDTf3kJMOgtwfwkbi_BA&page=2&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:28&tx=79&ty=88&biw=1192&bih=793
ReplyDeleteit (sexuality) is just a very interesting topic that sparks people's curiosity. if people are talking so much about it, they can't help but be curious like that.
ReplyDeletesexuality
ReplyDelete