As I was working through My Ántonia, I couldn't help but think of Ethan Frome, the depressing novel we read in American Literature my sophomore year of high school. That word really exaggerates the differences between the novel; Antonia's story is not nearly as laden with sadness as Frome's is. While they do have similar styles of narratives (flashback from the perspective of an uninvolved third character), their plot lines take stunningly different directions. Wow, fancy that, two novels with different plot lines? Who'd a thunk it. What I'm getting at is that maybe the location of the agricultural community might have a drastic effect on the perspectives of the characters. The East coast, where Ethan Frome takes place, has been a developing community for a long time. Having a large plot of land to call your own becomes increasingly difficult. Perhaps this contributes to the isolation and lack of funds that Frome feels. In the great state of Nebraska, large land prospects and a hopeful attitude created a much more merry environment. The community there just seems brighter and more hopeful than the town of Starkfield, whose name in and of itself suggests desolation.
I suppose a real English person could go into this a lot further than I just did....
it's ok Enich. as a fellow science person, I say you did great with this literary comparison =)
ReplyDeleteEnich, I thought that you are an American, not an Englishman of any sort.
ReplyDeleteI like the point you are making and I think it is relevant to our recurring theme of dissatisfaction in this way. In the more settled and developed eastern region, there may have been dissatisfaction, but with less possibility of overcoming it. This may have been a cultural, economic, and political reality, but it is also represented by the tangible reality that in the western region Cather describes there was land and the open land symbolized, maybe for her and certainly for many Americans, an open future.
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