Landscapes: Freedom and Opportunity (1) Today, the term American dream is being often used, when it comes to describing the opportunities that newly arrived immigrants are able to find in U.S. However, many people think of this term as something utterly abstract, even though that American dream has traditionally being associated with geographical vastness. In her book My Antonia, Willa Cather was able to organically integrate a story line into the physical settings, which creates a powerful dramatic effect, because authors description of nature and landscape reflects the essence of relationship between novels main characters. For Cather, the vastness of prairies represents the idea of limitless possibilities for hardworking people in America, for as long as they do not give up, after having experienced some initial setbacks. This is why; the descriptions of natural settings in Cathers novel are not just a decorative elements, but essential part of conveying novels main idea to readers. Novels narrator Jim Burden is described as someone who takes great pleasure out of being in the countryside: I used to love to drift along the pale-yellow cornfields, looking for the damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the smartweed soon turned a rich copper colour and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like cocoons about the swollen joints of the stem (Cather, p. 51).
Thus, we learn that Jim is a romantic, even before we get to read about the story of his life. It is important to understand that the reason why he and Antonia were able to get along is that they had the same idealistic mindset, which allows individual to enjoy nature.
The Essay on Willa Cather Americas Finest Female Author
... and concentrated on writing (Woodress). Throughout her college years Cather continued to write for the Journal and took any ... and interpretation." Yet, after her affair with Pound ended, Cather found "more enduring and supportive relationships," (O'Brien) with ... Introduction. Westport, Ct. : Greenwood Press, 1951. O'Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather the Emerging Voice. New York : Oxford Up, 1987. Robinson, ...
Antonia cannot speak English fluently, however, readers do not think of her as foreigner, because of this. Psychologically, she is American, just as Jim is. It is a fact that My Antonia has many autobiographical motives. Nevertheless, even if we did not know this, we would still be able to figure it out with ease, because the emotional portrayals of nature and landscape come straight from authors heart. Through Jim, she relates her own experiences of living in prairies. Cather seems to be especially fascinated with sunset. There are at least five different accounts of Jim meditating about his life, while watching the sunset. Here is a typical example: The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed.
That hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero’s death–heroes who died young and gloriously. It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up of day (Cather, p. 65).
Jim and Antonia are not simply drawn to prairies, in order to be left alone. Cornfields, the sky, river and flowers on the side of a road, endow them with a mystical knowledge about their future. It is because they used to spend a lot of time away from home that allows both characters to become self-reliant individuals and makes them immune to decadent attitudes. In appears that for Antonia, her fascination with nature actually had a practical meaning.
Because of it, she was able to overcome numerous difficulties in her life and to attain a true happiness. Thus, the landscapes symbolism in Cathers novel cannot be thought of outside out storytelling context. According to author, the properties of how person perceives nature, define his fate. At the end of book, Jim looks up in the sky and it dawns on him that his and Antonias lives were predetermined from very beginning. While talking about the place in Nebraska, where he grew up, Jim says: Out there I felt at home again. Overhead the sky was that indescribable blue of autumn; bright and shadowless, hard as enamel. I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man’s experience is.
The Essay on My Antonia Jim Antonia And The Land
In Americas Pioneering history, strong bonds between people and the land they live on have been built. From this bond, the act of colonizing land brings people together in intense relationships. In My Antonia, Willa Cather looks into these bonds between people, land, and people through the relationship between the 2 main characters, Jim and Antonia. Throughout the story, Antonia as a ...
For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny (Cather, p. 360).
Just as it is impossible to think of Jim and Antonia outside of farmland settings, it is also impossible to talk about Cathers book out of socio-political context. As it was being mentioned earlier, prairies vastness author associates with the idea of freedom. At the same time, it is only a landowner, who can enjoy such freedom, in the full sense of this word. This is why Jim envies Antonias happiness, at the end of the novel.
Even though that he was able to attain a good education and to make good living in the city, he does not own land. While being away from Black Hawk, Jim always misses it, because that is where he feels he truly belongs. It is only when he visits this town that he gets a spiritual relief: I took a long walk north of the town, out into the pastures where the land was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I felt at home again (Cather, p. 320).
We can say that Cather actually promotes a folkish idea, as something that defines nations unity.
It is farmers and descendants of farmers that are the most outspoken promoters of civil freedoms in this country. However, one cannot become a farmer, unless he knows how to enjoy being one on one with nature. Thus, the descriptions of nature and landscape in My Antonia often have a political sounding, even though that author does not realize it: Below us we could see the windings of the river, and Black Hawk, grouped among its trees, and, beyond, the rolling country, swelling gently until it met the sky. We could recognize familiar farm-houses and windmills. There was a sense of perfect order about all of this (Cather, p. 240).
(2) Jim and Antonia were raised, while being surrounded by newly arrived European immigrants, whose attachment to land was spiritual, in its essence. It will not be an exaggeration to say that these people had built America, as we know it. This is the reason why both characters attitude towards land and nature is so revering. At the same time, they are not just a passive spectators. This especially applies to Antonia, who appears to be both: a sensitive and sentimental woman and practical housewife, who knows just about everything about farming. In her article Willa Cathers My Antonia: The Happiness and the Curse Carol Leavitt Altieri points out to the fact that Cather promotes pioneers spirit, even though events described in the novel take place well after the frontier had been conquered: Willa Cather said in her later years about Nebraska: that country was the happiness and the curse of her life.3 She greatly admired the pioneers who struggled to cope with the wilderness and to make a better life for themselves and their families. She loved the trees and the wildflowers, especially the sunflowers along the roads which she wrote always seemed the roads to freedom. Moreover, she believed that the trees lives were connected with pioneers and that no place in the world grew more beautiful flowers than Nebraska (Altieri).
The Essay on Meaning of Life and Happiness
I do not think that there is a single person in the world who can say that knows what happiness actually is and, more importantly, that knows how to achieve it. We sometimes get the glimpse of pure happiness but those moments are so rare and so intense that we only recognise them too late. Each of us understands this feeling in a different way…I, for instance, see it as the one that can make you ...
Cathers love to nature and her stance on what constitutes human virtues allows us to compare her to Jack London. Just like him, she talks about landscape as the source of inspiration. The reason why there are no spiritually deprived characters in My Antonia, is because their existence is impossible in principle, amidst great plains, where artificial notions of conventional morality lose their value. Author promotes the idea that only worthy people are capable of appreciating nature fully, because their extensive life experiences allow them to see a concealed meaning in every expression of nature. For Jim and Antonia, sunrise represents a new beginning; it inspires them to remain active, in social sense of this word. At the same time, while observing sunset, they are able to contemplate on lifes great mysteries, which allows them to conclude that in this world everything is interconnected. To conclude this paper, we need to say that, in order to be able to enjoy reading My Antonia, it is crucial for the reader to understand that natures symbolism, in the novel, contains as much semantic meaning as actual storyline. Author wanted to tell us that our perception of landscape and nature defines us as individuals.
Only those people who know how to relate their own lives to the cloud in the sky, or to the scent of flowers in the air, have a chance of attaining happiness.
Bibliography:
Altieri, Carol Willa Cathers My Antonia: The Happiness and the Curse. 2001. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 30 Jun. 2007. http://yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1987/2/87.0 2.01.x.html Cather, Willa My Antonia.
The Essay on The Chargeable Nature Of Life
Life is constantly changing, like clouds in the sky; always shifting and turning. People never really know which way life will turn next, bringing them fortune or failure. When you look at how things change it is best to compare it to something that you can relate it to. The changeable nature of life can be related to the novel "The Bean Trees." This is a book written almost entirely on dealing ...
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Outline: Part one. Pp. 1-2 Part two. Pp. 2-4.
