The Theme Of Friendship In My Antonia

Willa Cather

Young love is often exhilarating. Its fresh and new, nothing can slow it down. In My Antonia, Jimmy and Antonia fall in love at a young age but grow apart as they get old and go separate ways. Responsibility came in and occupied their lives. Jimmy grew old and tired, resulting in him being lethargic. Cather portrays friendship as being unavailing in the long run in order to prove the existential belief that everyone is going to die.

Antonia and Jimmy’s romance never became worthwhile in the end, but neither did their friendships with other people. “Most of my old friends were dead or had moved away (Cather, Antonia 220).” Most of Jimmy’s friends abandoned him because of their job or they just became old and slow. No one

“Father Latour and Jacinto rode across New Mexico and half of Arizona to find father Valiant and bring him back to the easy stages. But they rode for 10 days, across the same dry desert, with no towns in sight (Cather, Bishop 93).” Throughout Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather repeatedly mentions how the desert was dry and reminded the people inhabiting it of death. Everyone wanted to get away for a while and break free from the routine. But they committed to the same boring life and would live it until the day they die. Nothing would change in the town if they stayed, but the characters couldn’t leave because they committed to a life and had families. Cather shows this struggle in My Antonia as well when Antonia had to settle for a man she did not love because it was seen as reckless to not marry in Nebraska during that time. Cather relates the two books by implementing the common theme of the boring everyday ritual. The characters in her book have an ultimatum, stay and continue to follow each stage of life, or move away. Cather decides to make the characters stay in the town, because if they moved away what good would it do them, they are growing old and slow, and a boring life comes with that. “Though the Bishop had worked with father Joseph for twenty-five years, he could never stop working for him because it was the only safe job he could have, and he could not

Although death was the main reason why friendships were rare in Cathers novels, characters such as Jim in My Antonia realized ‘freedom’ or ‘success’ could not be reached in crowded communities. “Pioneers and artists are practically equals in single-mindedness; at least they work much by themselves, contending with definite through ruthless obstacles and looking forward, if they win, to a freedom which cannot be achieved in the routine of crowded communities (Van Dorren 150).” In this quote, Cather expresses her belief that success cannot be achieved with friends, and one must be single-minded in order to be successful. Cather is saying not only are friendships useless in old age and the afterlife, but they will get in the way of success during young age. In My Antonia, Jim made the choice to leave Antonia to become a business man in New York City. He had to break any bond he had with her in order to leave on a clear conscience, and not be held back from being