Willa Cather made her intentions clear when she wanted to compare Alexandra and Antonia, two main characters inside two successful books. Both Willa Cather’s novels O’Pioneers and My Antonia, took place during the early 1900s. Back in the day, women were supposed to cook, clean, and read the children. In contrast though, both Alexandra and Antonia wanted to challenge society’s noms. Both of their immigrant experience, relationship to the land, caretaker role, and father’s influence make the outline of theses two different girls. Both having to endure tough times and use their creativity to make the best of their situations. Only difference is how each of them achieve their goals and dreams.
Before we can break down each lady, we must start with their physical, emotional, and ethnicity backgrounds. For starters, Alexandra, a Swedish girl with reddish blonde hair, was a tall, head strong individual who was the oldest member of her siblings. During one of the beginning scenes, Alexandra lets her hair down, and gets complimented. However, she then scowled at the main in disapproval. Alexandra display more of a masculine side than than the classic feminine style, which was very common in that day of age. During the first scene, Alexandra wore a men clothing, and she wore it with confidence. She seemed very comfortable in it. Alexandra was passionate about the land and was open to new farming ideas. She displayed great care for her youngest brother Emil and took pride in her hard work and successful farming tactics.
In contrast, Antonia was a Bohemian girl with dark features. Her hair, eyes, and skin were also dark in color. Antonia dressed more ladylike than Alexandra did. During the movie, one of Antonia’s friends offered to sew a nice dress for Antonia. Antonia was very excited about the thought of looking nice. Another difference between Alexandra and Antonia is that Antonia like the male attention. Whenever men would give her compliments, she would just smile and get red in the face.
Alexandra’s whole life was about living off of the land and learning what the prairie had to offer. Usually the men in the family would take charge, not in this case. Back in the day, it was unheard of hearing that a women ran and managed the family farm. Alexandra determination never stopped her from getting what she wanted. The only time emotion comes out of Alexandra was when her brothers turned against her and when her little brother Emil past away.
Both lady’s father influenced each of them differently. Antonia relied on her father for everything. During her younger years she loved company and was always looking for someone to talk to. When it came to the chores she was assigned, she was given more ladylike tasks. After her father dies, Antonia was forced to do more hard work then she was use to doing. Although these two women show many differences, they both share one important trait, determination. Both did whatever it took to get the job done.
Alexandra and Antonia both suffered the loss of a close loved one. Each lady had tough times that made them even stronger women. To start off the novel, Alexandra father died and left the family farm all to her. This was a big handful for Alexandra. However, her father knew she was the perfect one for the job. Alexandra also had another loss in her family that affected her even more. After her brother Emil past away, Alexandra was a wreck. She wanted to give him every opportunity in life to succeed in life, but she wasn’t given the opportunity to.
Antonia also struggled with death as well. Her father committed suicide during the harsh winter. In my opinion, I felt like this was a selfish move. However, at this time, the family was barely making ends meet. He couldn’t deal with the stress of helping the family anymore, and just chose the easy way out. Antonia’s father knew that his daughter would have to take charge and ownership now that he was gone. One difference between Alexander’s dad and Antonia’s father was that Alexandra’s father died of sickness rather than suicide. Alexandra’s father was able to give her tips on how to run the farm before he died.
After both of their fathers died, both realized they must do something to help out the family. Alexandra’s role was to run and manage the family farm. Having to make some risking tough decisions, staying true to the land, and if she was 100 percent in, then that would be the way her father would want it. She decided to stay on the farm, and that was not an easy decision. Her brothers wanted to move since they were losing faith in the land. However, Alexandra was hurt by her brother’s feelings, she knew something good would come out just like her father promised.
I felt that Antonia had it a little tougher once her father past away. She was determined to work as hard as she could to help out her family in any way. In the beginning, she had no idea what she was getting herself into since she really hasn’t had any prior work experience. Eventually, she is hired out for multiple jobs such as a family maid, cook, and in one instance, she was hired to do a man’s job. Antonia was never as successful as Alexandra, but she never stopped working hard and always had faith in the land.
In both novels, these ladies had a love interest. Alexandra was Carl and Antonia’s was Jimmy. Alexandra and Carl started out having a strong friendship that grew into something more. For example, during the first scene, he was there for Alexandra when Alexandra’s little brother Emil’s kitten climbed up to the top of a telephone pole. Carl got strapped up and climbed to the top and saved the kitten. Carl was also there to comfort Alexandra thou the tough times when her father died. In contrast, the two never really showed any affection for each other. Alexandra’s brothers confronted her about Carl. They had mixed feelings about this man saying that Carl was only interested in her for her money.
Towards the end of the book, Carl left for Alaska in find of gold to earn some income. He doesn’t reappear in the book until the very end. At the end Alexanda and Carl’s relationships picked up from right where it had been left off. Both of them realize that love so powerful and has a huge impact on life. So they decided to share the rest of their lives together. Readers never find out if they actually marry or not, but the novel left subtle hits assuring us that they did.
Antonia found love a little differently. Have you ever heard of love at first sight? Well ever since the first time Jimmy and Antonia met, there was instant chemistry. Antonia kept dropping of hints to Jimmy reassuring that she liked him also. Even though she couldn’t fluently speak English, she found a way to tell Jimmy how she felt about him. When Jimmy asked if he could kiss her, Antonia knew she was in for a treat. With no denial, this just helped Jimmy know how Antonia felt about him. Antonia loved Jimmy so much that when his grandparents asked her to heave him alone, she did so. She knew education was important to Jimmy, that’s why she respected the order from Jimmy’s grandparents.
While Jimmy was away at college, Antonia got pregnant with an horrible man named Larry Donovan. After Larry received news of Antonia’s pregnancy, he left her because they weren’t married and that was against society’s norms to get pregnant before marriage. The moment Jimmy returned home, sparks started to fly again. Jimmy didn’t care that Antonia was pregnant, he was just happy to see her again. After Jimmy left again, he only returned finding out that Antonia got married to a guy with a name of Cuzark. The two hard ten kids including her little girl she had previously had with Larry. Even though Antonia found a father figure, she still always found Jimmy in her heart.
In conclusion, these two strong women have walked down two completely different paths, and lived two different lives. They have many differences in appearance, personality, love life, and family role. But if there is one thing that would bring these two together, it would be their determination. Without their determination, they wouldn’t have been able to live up to their father’s expectations and wouldn’t have gotten to live and learn from the Nebraskan soil.