My Antonia - Day 3

Chizoba Ukairo
Laura Miron
Kathryn Lazarchick

Book III: Jim’s Transition to College and Lena Lingard

“While I was in the very act of yearning toward the new forms that Cleric brought up before me, my mind plunged away from me, and I suddenly found myself thinking of the places and people of my own infinitesimal past” (189).

• Jim attends the University of Nebraska where he meets an “inspiring young scholar”(186) Gasto Cleric. While Jim reflects on his time with Cleric as “a time of mental awakening as one of the happiest moments of [his] life”(186), Jim admits that while studying at the university, he knew “that [he] should never be a scholar” (188).
• Although Jim enjoyed learning new things and becoming accustomed to the perks of city life, his “mental excitement was apt to send [him] back to his own naked land” (188), as his thoughts still remained in the countryside.

“How I loved to hear [Lena] laugh again! It was so soft and unexcited and appreciative...When I closed my eyes I could hear them all laughing -- the Danish laundry girls and the three Bohemian Marys. Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over me, as it had never done before” (193).

• Jim is in a daze as Lena appears at his doorstep in a manner “so smooth and sunny and well cared for”(191).
• The two old friends attend plays in the city and grow closer through their frequent outings.
• Through Lena, Jim is updated on Antonia’s life. Lena sparks Jim’s curiosity, as she reveals “[Tony’s] always bragging about you , you know”(191).
• Jim realizes that he may never settle down with Lena in his life as he “shall never think of much else when [he’s] with her” (204). He decides to join Cleric in Boston and leave the active city lifestyle with Lena behind in hopes for a more stable future.

Book IV: Jim’s move to Harvard and Antonia’s failed marriage and motherhood

“She loved it from the first as dearly as if she’d had a ring on her finger, and was never ashamed of it. It’s a year and eight months old now, and no baby was ever better cared-for. Antonia is a natural-born mother. I wish she could marry and raise a family, but I don’t know as there’s much chance now” (217).

• while Jim has been away, Antonia has tried to have her new start to life but unlike Jim failed by being deserted by her fiance and left alone with child
• Although she is not ashamed of the child, she goes home and not until birth does  even her family notice
• like in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, being pregnant with no husband was a scandal.
• possible ruined her chances of ever marrying (well at this point in the novel)
• Unlike those novels, Lena and other women in this novel have been able to establish themselves (Lena with her seamstress position, etc.)

“We reached the edge of the field, where our paths parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast...over my heart. About us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her face, which I meant to always carry with me...As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and  girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass” (219-220).

• Again the two friends must part, physically and emotionally
• the field ends signalling them having to go different ways
• They have to step into a new chapter of their lives again without the other
• They part again with the hopes of seeing the other again
• They are able to part where they first met (in the country) and on better terms
• This quote also shows how much they cared for on another and grew up together so much in that grass and country
• The image of the children running is an obvious flashback to the better days of their childhood
• kind of a where they began to their final goodbyes (for a while)

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Books 3-5: Antonia’s life comes full circle

• Antonia is back on the farm, where she started when she came to America
• married with a large family and a loving, needing husband
• After the failure of her last “marriage”, Antonia needs this
• It’s surprising to the reader that Antonia is able to get remarried in the first place
• Life has not been easy since Antonia left the Harlings
• Multiple odd jobs, never as homey or as little labor as she had when living with the Harlings
• Her father’s death is when the family’s hardships dramatically increased
• Antonia’s reckless decisions reflect today’s adolescents a lot

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Questions:

1. While studying at the university, Jim often reflects on his “early friends” in the countryside who “in some strange way accompanied [him] through all of [his] new experiences (189). At this point in his life, did his constant reflection on the past hinder his ability to live in the present?
2. What is the significance of the plays that Jim and Lena attend? Why does Cather briefly explain the storyline of Camille? (pgs 194-195)
3. What role does Gasto Cleric play in Jim’s life? Is Cleric even a significant character at this point in the novel?
4. Contrast significant differences in life outcomes between Lena and Antonia
5. Why does Jim feel so abhorred when he learns about what has become of Antonia after he finishes at Harvard?
6. By the end of the novel, what is the most important event that took place in Antonia’s life thus far? (Excluding her family’s immigration to America)