Heroism In My Antonia

However, what makes Cather’s writing unique is that whilst she does conform to historical beliefs surrounding the wilderness, this conformity is only partial and she deviates from traditional historical ideals just as much, if not more, than she abides to them. Tom Outland’s discovery is a not a virgin landscape, which is what he expected, but rather a forgotten city. What he ultimately discovers is the palimpsestic reality of American history. The landscape is not new to everybody, it is only new to the individual finding it that time around. This is where we start to see Tom deviating from the typical Masculine sublime. He appreciates his discovery for what it means for the people who’s culture has been rediscovered, not what it means for

In My Antonia it is Antonia, a girl, who ultimately prevails over the land, not her father who loses himself and his life to it.20 By choosing to have Antonia be the prevailer of the land, Cather is putting forth a new concept of heroism. When Antonia, Jim and the other immigrant girls first see the plough it is “magnified by the horizontal light [...] heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.”21 Not only does this suggest that the plough writes the future for the farmer, which it does, but its description follows straight on after a discussion of Coronado’s adventure in America, thus suggesting a new idea surrounding notions heroism. Once Antonia is grown and becomes the hero of the land, the parallels between the new hero, ‘the plough’, and the future hero, Antonia, become apparent. From the plough that writes on the sun, to a girl with eyes “like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood”22, it is Antonia Shimerda that works and achieves success from the land, and whilst “she does manipulate the environment in order to render it productive,”23 she maintains her strong emotional connection to the