My Antonia question #4

The hero in the book "My Antonia" by Willa Cather is of course Antonia Shimerda. Antonia is described as being very generous, optimistic, kind, hard working, adventurous, and full of life. She always makes the best out of a situation and can never see the bad in someone that she loves. She has a great love for children as well and ends up having ten of her own. She is also a natural dancer and never misses the dances when they are in town. Physically, Antonia is very attractive and pretty. In the book it talks about how beautiful she looks all dressed up when she comes to town and Jim Burden sees her for the first time since he had left. She is very favorable among the men in town and has several dates to the dances where everyone wants a turn with her. Antonia Shimerda accomplishes much in this book because she is such a hard worker. In order to adapt to the farm life after moving to Black Hawk, Nebraska from Bohemia, and support her family, she is put to work in manual labor. She works hard though and works as hard the guys do. Antonia eventually moves to town to work and stays with the Harlings at first and then moves in with the Cutters when she is told she is no longer allowed to attend the dances that she looks forward to so much. Later in the book she is planning on marrying Larry Donovan, when he loses his job and leaves her in the dust when her money runs out. Antonia is left pregnant with his child and she has no other choice but to move back to the farm. There she works again, and without anyone knowing about her baby, gives birth to it in her room. She moves on to marry a Bohemian man named Cuzek and raises a large family with ten children. Her relationship with Jim is tested through all of this and the separation is hard for both of them, but in the end Jim visits her and finds her spirit to be the same. "She was there, in the full vigour of her personality, battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, breathy voice I remembered so well" (Cather, 199). The friendship between the two is definitely one for life. I think Antonia can easily represent the abstract idea of goodness.

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. New York: Barns & Noble, 2003. Print.