Explore the relationship of the individual to the natural world in My Antonia and/or another text studied on this course.
ID:51659157
Willa Cather’s My Antonia is set in the Nebraskan prairie which is a familiar setting to the author as it is where Cather grew up. Due to her personal knowledge of the Midwest, Cather is able to accurately describe the vast, grassy plains of the frontier. Her lush descriptions of nature serve to closely tie the individual characters and their emotions to their surroundings. The relationship of the individual to the natural world in My Antonia Is explored in many ways – the character’s dependence on the natural world as farmers, how the natural world comes to symbolise characters, the natural world used as a metaphor for Jim’s impending adulthood and how the natural world is compared to the town. Through all these areas, Cather shows the vital role the natural world plays in the lives of the individuals in the novel.
PARA ONE
The characters in My Antonia are farmers, and as such, are dependent on the natural world for their livelihood. This results in the characters being deeply impacted by changes to the natural world, such as weather. During the winter months, the characters experience a drop in their mood as they can no longer work on the land, ‘Ambrosch and Antonia were both old enough to work in the fields, and they were willing to work. But the snow and bitter weather had disheartened them all.” Despite being willing to work, the weather prevents this. This highlights how the elemental forces of the natural world are always greater than the individual. The winter weather has a strong impact on the life of the characters and their psychological state – perhaps it is the harsh winter, as well as his desire for his home country, that ultimately led to Mr Shimerda’s suicide. Unable to tame the natural world around them, the characters are reminded of how insignificant they are in comparison, always controlled by the land. Antonia notes, “The whole world was changed by snow.” This is true as well of life on the Nebraskan prairie and lives of the characters who live there. The farmers are always at the mercy of the elements.
Claudia Yukman writes of the harsh landscape and the farmers relationship with it, “In addition to taking one’s chances with nature, owning land on the frontier means gambling with the marketplace economy. One can lose social status very quickly.’ Here, Yukman implies that the individual character is deeply linked to the land not only for their livelihood but also for their social status. The farmers in the novel are tied to the land they cultivate in several ways, highlighting its importance. Yukman goes on to explain how women, as individuals, are impacted by this, “The disruption of a social fabric created by the shifting values of the market produces a parallel disruption in women’s lives and roles, since their marriageability depends on the value of their father’s property. Like a field, the daughter’s social position may be all too quickly blighted.” The individual and their relationship to the natural world is a fraught one, subject to change at any moment through the elements. However, as a woman, the relationship one has with the land takes on an added concern – the social status of herself is based on the holding of her family. This shows clearly how farmers relationship with the natural world influences not only their livelihood but also social status.
PARA TWO
The protagonist and narrator, Jim Burden, is deeply connected to the natural world through his memories and perceptions of his surroundings. Cather uses a first-person narrative in My Antonia which serves to highlight Jim’s individual relationship with the land. The first-person narrative emphasises Jim as an individual and allows for his character to be contrasted with the vastness of the Frontier. As the novel is written as such, we explore Antonia through the eyes of Jim and how to him, she comes to represent and grow as a symbol for the land where he grew up. Jim remembers Antonia, “More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood.” Cather allows us to consider Antonia not just as a character, but to consider her also as a symbol. In Jim’s mind, she is a symbol of the natural landscape of the Nebraskan prairie which he so nostalgically remembers.
As an adult, Jim promises to come back to the frontier and visit Antonia, but twenty years pass before he eventually does so. He justifies this choice to himself, writing of his fear to see Antonia again, “I did not want to find her aged and broken; I really dreaded it. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.” Jim has made Antonia a symbol of his childhood and the natural world and because of this, he is scared to face Antonia in her present state, as she will no longer be the Antonia from his memories. To face her now would be to face her as an individual, rather than the nostalgically romantic idea of her he had constructed by associating her as a symbol of the past and the frontier.
PARA THREE
The natural landscape of the frontier in the novel can also be read as a metaphor for Jim’s impending adulthood and his coming-of-age journey. Jim describes his surroundings, ‘There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries were made. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man’s jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven all of there was of it. Between that earth and that sky, I felt erased, blotted out.” Jim as an individual is contrasted with the vast Nebraskan prairie – the expanse is unknowable and could perhaps be compared to the unknowable journey of growing up for Jim. He faces adulthood in new surroundings which to him, are uncharted and vast. The land can be compared to Jim in that they are both coming of age. Jim is beginning to enter into his adulthood while the frontier is also undergoing change – the arrival of immigrants such as the Shimerda’s.
Jim and the land can also be closely compared when Jim describes it, “As I looked up about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The read of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.” In a time of motion within Jim’s life – moving to the Nebraskan prairie and growing up in new surroundings – the land is also described as being in motion. This shows how Cather intertwines the individual with the natural landscape and how the land mimics individuals in harmony.
PARA FOUR
The relationship of individuals to the natural world is seen clearly when we compare the natural landscape to the landscape of the town. The relationship of the individual to the natural land is explored, as is the relationship of the individual to the setting of the town. Characters moods change depending on their relationship to the town or the frontier. Jim has a complicated relationship with the natural world and the build-up town. Upon returning from a visit to a river he notes, “For the first time, it occurred to me that I should be homesick for that river after I left it.” As Jim grows older, he moves away from the natural world where he grew up but still feels homesick for the memory of the natural landscape of the frontier where he grew up. He may always feel a longing to return. However, Urgo disagrees when he argues, “Jim is not homesick in My Antonia, for homesickness can be fatal, which is the story of Mr Shimerda. On the other hand, Jim Burden is homeless. He is among the brave of the novel, along with Lena Lingard and the other “hired girls,” and of course Antonia herself.” Urgo argues that Jim is not homesick as this feeling would lead, Urgo suggests, to death. He raises the idea that Jim is “homeless” – not completely homesick for the natural world where he grew up but not completely at home in the build-up world where he resides in his adult life.
The theme of the natural landscape vs the town and the importance it plays in Jim’s life is shown in the symbol of the plough. In the lush descriptions of the weather and landscape, we are presented the symbol of the plough. It stands out against the backdrop of the elements, “black against the molten red. There it was heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.” However, as soon as the plough appears against the elements, it disappears, “Even while we whispered beneath it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, and the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie.” The plough can be read as a metaphor for Jim. Among the natural landscape and elements, Jim is heroic, standing out. However, as soon as the sun sets and the backdrop of the natural world is removed from the scene, Jim fades into littleness. Perhaps this suggests that amongst the natural world and elements, Jim is heroic but as soon as the elements of the landscape are stripped away, Jim fades away. This ultimately could represent that Jim in on the frontier vs Jim in the town. In the beauty of the prairie, Jim is magnified.
However, the plough can also be read as a symbol of farming in general and the farmers who live off the land. They are heroic in their attempts to tame the land and cultivate their livelihoods from it, but ultimately, they are small in comparison to the natural world. The farmers are no match for the vast grassy plains they inhabit.
Later in the novel, the characters are divided into those who prefer the natural landscape and those who prefer to reside in the city. Antonia, for example, confesses that she is happier in the farm setting. Meyering writes, “The invocation of the pastoral world and of the Georgics shows the importance of contact with the natural world. Antonia’s world is a hard one for the pastoral genre, but it is innocent it its way. It is when the mechanized world, associated with the railroad, intrudes that bad things happen: the rape planned by Wick Cutter turns on railroad schedules; the seducer, Larry Donovan, who accomplishes Antonia’s ruin is a railway employee; and it is the railroad itself that has taken her away from the world where she was loved and valued. She attains happiness again through her marriage with a man close to the land.” Antonia sought to leave the farming world for the modern ways of the town for love, despite her connection to the land. This leads to several unfortunate events occurring, suggesting that Antonia’s place is on the frontier. It is only when she returns to the prairie and marries a man who farms the land, is she eventually happy. Considered the character of Antonia, it is clear to see where she feels she belongs. However, in the case of her childhood friend, Jim Burden, the reader is unsure where to place him. Jim has a nostalgic romantic view of the countryside based on his childhood memories, however he chooses to reside in New York city as a lawyer.
In conclusion, the individuals relationship to the natural world is explored through many examples within the novel, the farmers who rely on the land, through the symbols of Antonia and the plough, the natural landscape as a metaphor and it’s comparison to the town.