the image of antonia

The Image of Antonia “Since I’ve been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I’d have like to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister – anything that a woman can be to man” (Cather 206). In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Jim Burden spoke those words to his life long love, Antonia Shimerda. Jim and Antonia were …

…people, class and native wise. When one does not have much in life, money and status wise, one must take what life gives him and make that everything. The land was all Antonia had and the image of Antonia was all Jim had. Because they were so different, he was only able to have the “idea” of her. He was never able to marry his Antonia. Works Cited Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Houghton Miffli