Comparing My Antonia And The Semplica-Girl Diaries

The American Dream, coined by James Truslow Adams, famously stated that “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.” Indeed, countless people have been inspired by, and pursued for, the dream of equality, prosperity, and a new beginning. The hired girls in My Antonia and the semplica-girls in “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” are amongst the countless dreamers: immigrating to America in pursuit of prosperity for themselves and their family. However, while the hired girls eventually achieved their dreams, the semplica-girls became items of show, seemingly never able to achieve their dreams. By comparing the two stories, we see that the American Dream does

Therefore, rights of the semplica-girls were easily ignored, while the hired girls’ rights were preserved. In My Antonia, the laundry-man hired Danish girls to help him do his job. “The laundry-man was a kind, wise old fellow, who paid his girls well, looked out for them, and gave them a good home.” (141) The Danish laundry girls were treated by the laundryman just like daughters, and it is later revealed that the laundry-man’s daughter had passed away and he had been “‘trying to make up for it ever since’” (141). It is obvious that the laundryman had established a personal connection with the Danish girls, and saw them as his daughters. This is applicable to the relationship between the entire Black Hawk community and the hired girls: Jim’s love for Antonia, Mrs. Harling’s care for Lena, and much more. In general, the community of Black Hawk connects with the hired girls on a personal level and sees them as part of a bigger family. The personal connections established between the hired girls and the community make it impossible for the hired girls to be exploited for their

Moreover, they were purely seen as decorative items not unlike a statue or a painting. When the narrator purchased the semplica-girls for his new garden, the narrator described: “SGs up now… swaying in slight breeze… Having so often seen similar configuration in yards of others more affluent makes own yard seem suddenly affluent...” (10) Semplica-girls were seen as property and a way of showing off one’s material wealth. The narrator immediately buys ‘SG arrangement’ after winning 10,000 dollars from scratch off, simply because buying “SGs” had become a trend in the society, and he described them not as living people, but as an exotic item. Later in the story, the loss of the semplica-girls was evaluated by an agent of the Greenway company: “... initial cost of SGs” / “Per Rob, Replacement Debit = $100/month, per individual, per each month still remaining.” (16) The narrator’s family and the Greenway company were all the people that cared about the missing semplica-girls. Even so, they only cared because the loss of the semplica-girls caused damage to their financial status. They saw the loss of the semplica-girls as the loss of property, not the loss of human