Major Themes Of My Antonia

In the novel My Ántonia, there are many themes, such as, friendship, family, past, youth, gender, life and death, and more. The past is one of the major themes of My Ántonia, because it shapes the novel. The readers can see it shapes the novel because it can be seen through the characters. The novel is written with a feeling of nostalgia and love for the past, the characters seem to never want to forget the past. The characters have a strong attachment to their pasts and memories; the past makes the characters who they are.

Willa Cather wrote My Ántonia on a feeling of nostalgia. The story is a fictional memoir and the story of Jim Burden’s childhood. Jim wrote about it when he was older so, the book is him trying to remember his childhood.

Ántonia asked about Jim remembering things that are important to her. “’You won’t forget my father, Jim?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I will never forget him.’” (Cather,61). She asked because she wanted to be reassured that he would not forget. “‘You ain’t forget about me, Jim?’” (Cather,76). This time she wanted to know that he had not forgotten. They really do not want to let go of the past or forget it. “’I ain’t never forgot my own country.’” (Cather, 115). This quote is all about Ántonia being proud about what she has not forgotten and in that paragraph she talks about all she remembers. They also do not want to forget their roots. Antonia does not want to forget her home country and in all of book 3 Jim never forgets his friends, his homestead, and Black Hawk. For example, on page 129 Jim talks about how he was thinking about how he could hear all the girls he used hang out with laughing. He said he did not want those memories to vanish because they were precious to him; so, he clung to those

This happened to Mr. Shimerda and Pavel. The past stuck to Mr. Shimerda so much that he could not let it go. It weighed him down to the point that he committed suicide. The past stuck to Pavel as well which is why it was haunting him on his deathbed. For a while the readers knew that the past was affecting Mr. Shimerda. On page 45 Ántonia confides in Jim, “‘My papa sad for the old country. He not look good’” (Cather, 45). Later Jim explains that he knew what killed Mr. Shimerda, “’ I knew it was homesickness that had killed Mr. Shimerda…’” (Cather,50). In chapter eight on pages 29 through 32 Pavel gets his past off his chest right before he dies. This showed how the memories were weighing him down until his last day. He needed to take the weight off, or get it off his chest, before he could die peacefully. The past also makes the characters who they are. This can be seen with Lena and how certain experiences stuck with her and changed her and her perspectives. On page 139 Lena tells Jim about how her childhood with children has influenced how she views marriage, family, and being lonely. She confides in him and tells him that she enjoys being lonely because she never could be before in such a big family. She also views marriage and family as tiresome and something she’s done before, because it feels like she raised her siblings. Even the narrator can see the influence of the past on his friends, “I couldn’t