Question 2:
In the book My Antonia I believe that Jim learns more from his relationship with Antonio. First and foremost, Jim is the narrator and he gives his opinions and perspectives about Antonia. Therefore, we truly do not know what Antonio learns as Jim is narrating to us what he thinks she may have learnt. Jim says, “I pointed towards them and Antonia laughed and squeezed my hand as if to tell me how glad she was I had come.” .This shows that it was Jim’s assumptions of Antonia and not the true feeling she had as she did not express them verbally.
Jim gets to learn about himself from the life of Antonia and the way she interacted with her family and others. He learnt how they loved one another and also extended their love to strangers.
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There are several characteristics she portrays that makes her to be greatly admired by Cather. First, Antonia is loyal. She is loyal to her mother who was not treating them right. Her mother was conceited and boastful and no misfortune could humble her but Antonio still tolerated and loved her as her mother. She also showed loyalty when she loved her brothers who did not treat her well (Cather, 1918). Her loyalty also extended to the Harlings even though they did not approve or support her life choices. She was loyal to Larry for a long time who eventually ended up abandoning her when she was pregnant. When she gets a family, she tells Jim even though she had weaknesses for him, she had a family and it is all that mattered to her.
Willa Cather admired Antonia’s indomitable spirit. Despite the fact that she faced a lot of challenges and hardships in her life such as the death of her father and how she was treated at the Harlings, she did not allow them to put them down. She was a strong woman who was undefeated as the narrator says, “She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things (Cather,