In My Antonia by Willa Cather the theme is that freedom is attained through selflessness. This theme is prominently displayed when Grandmother Burden selflessly provided the Schimerda family with chickens and countless other provisions, thereby freeing the family from dire poverty and starvation. Due to her self-sacrificial labor “binding sheaves or working with the thrashers,” Antonia provided for her family allowing them the liberty to subsist on the harsh prairie after the death of Mr. Schimerda. Wishing to give Yulka the privilege of new shoes, Antonia self-effacingly thought not of her own needs when asking Lena Lingard for the high-heeled slippers for her sister. The theme of the novel is that only in self-sacrifice is independence