His and Her Ántonia

For my paper I explored the relationship between Cather and Jim's  Ántonia, and how Cather's goal was to recreate the classic woman (i.e. Helen of Troy) except American in style.

My Ántonia by Willa Cather portrays the beauties of farm life in rural Nebraska through the eyes of the narrator, Jim Burden, who must carry his love for a woman named Ántonia from his young years through the different paths their lives take. Throughout the novel, the two physically drift slowly apart; Jim’s education pulls him out of Ántonia’s rural life. She, on the other hand, left her education early on to support her family. She is condemned to the life of a serving girl. Though we see them separate, the novel ends with their reunion. Here we see that Jim’s love lasted the ages; to him, Ántonia can do no wrong. His image of her is perfect in every respect; this novel really does portray his Ántonia, the Ántonia he adores despite all faults.

            Ántonia’s picturesque portrayal reflects themes carried in classic literature. She is raised on a similar pedestal to Helen of Troy. Of course, this classical allusion is no mistake by the author. Willa Cather’s intention is to create the great American novel. This love within the devotion to the land she writes about reflects her earthly connection growing up. In these respects, Ántonia belongs to Cather. Her Ántonia is the woman of the ages, fit within the American love of the land. The voice of Cather in Jim musing over Ántonia, ignoring all wrongs reflects Cather’s desire to create a novella ripe with classical themes but unique to America and the American rural experience.

            Cather lived rurally. Her affluent beginnings on the frontier polished her unique lens on American life. To her, the classic American experience came from the plough and its relation to the ground. Her nostalgia for the golden age of farming, where a man tilling the land was valued above all else runs through most of her novels.  Specifically, My Ántonia takes place in and around tiny Black Hawk, Nebraska. We see the characters picking potatoes, fighting snakes and marveling in the glory of the larger towns. This all, no doubt, stems from Cather’s personal history.

            However, Cather does not make her career as a farmer. She becomes a writer. Still, her connection to the earth lives on in her literature. She longs to iconicize this nostalgic, classic, American experience. Her yearning becomes readily apparent in Jim’s studies. To work he “… propped open [his] book and stared listlessly at the page of the Georgics…” (126). Here, Cather- using Jim’s voice narrating Virgil- announces “… I will be the first, if I live, to bring the muses to my country.” (126). “My country” no longer meaning Virgil’s Rome, but Jim and Cather’s America. Virgil’s words are ultimately severed from their context through discussion of the plough- the powerful tool which is part and parcel to working the land. This tool of man represents the work of Americans; for the Romans, “… the pen was fitted to the matter as the plough is to the furrow.” for Americans (126). Together, Jim and Cather have subtly introduced us to the novel’s motive. Cather has taken Virgil’s timeless themes and tethered them to the plow, as apposed to solely the pen. Together, plow and literature till the fertile land. The fruit of her labor is a novel ripe with classicism.

            Cather’s intentions are personified in Jim as narrator. He is the voice through which her nuances are introduced. Cather’s classical allusions are personified in Jim’s love of Ántonia. He reminisces fondly of her.  Ántonia’s family immigrated to Black Hawk around the same time as Jim’s family. Both being newcomers, the children grew close. Jim enjoyed her company, boasted of killing a snake in front of her, and dedicated his high school commencement oration to her memory of her father. Their young years together create an inseparable bond that ends up lasting the ages.

However, circumstances growing old physically separated the two of them. Jim’s education drew him away from Black Hawk, and Ántonia had to accept a job as a serving girl. When they are reunited later in life, it is obvious that his love has never faulted. On touring Ántonia and her husband’s farm, he admires her children and how well she has done for herself. As he falls asleep in her barn, he muses over her once more:

She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things (167).

It has been years. He is older, as is she. He is married, as is she. Yet still, he is hopelessly in love with her. To him, she represents universal, imaginative pulchritude that is boundless and timeless- no marriage or age can fence it in.

            This is not to say that Ántonia is without faults. In her younger years while working for the Harlings she takes up the pastime of dancing. Jim and the other working girls become preoccupied with this risqué activity. Ántonia becomes so swept up in it that when the Harlings give her an ultimatum of a job or dancing, she chooses dance. She ends up working for Wick Cutter, an unctuous moneylender disliked throughout the town. She also starts dancing with Larry Donovan, known to be “…a kind of professional ladies man…” (108). Despite her newly found bad habits, her image is unmarred- at least, according to Jim. Directly after introducing her questionable choice in partner, Jim says Ántonia “… was lovely to see, with her eyes shining, and her lips always a little parted when she danced. That constant, dark color in her cheeks never changed.” (108). She has left a lovely family, chosen a questionable new boss, with risqué activities with a promiscuous man as a date. Any normal man would begin to find faults in their image; Yet, Jim remains infatuated.  

            Jim and Ántonia’s relationship exists within the greater context of a farming community. He idealizes her, but on American terms. There are no wars fought over her name; instead, Jim kills a snake and takes pride in her admiration. They do not rest in the Grecian cities but instead on hay bales on the American prairie. Cather’s reference to classic infatuation, epitomized by Helen of Troy is meant create the American image of love.  Men swoon over Helen in Greece; In America, men swoon over Ántonia. Cather’s Ántonia draws Jim in, and he never quite lets go. The rural life has drawn the two of them together, and thus Cather and Jim paint an untouchable portrait of Ántonia. His and her Ántonia will last the ages.