My Antonia question #7

Willa Cather uses several techniques while writing "My Antonia" to engage the audience and make the story effective. Some of the techniques used would be tragedy, betrayal, and love. Like I said, tragedy is one of the first techniques used in this story. An example of this would be the death of Mr.Shimerda in the first section of the book. Mr.Shimerda and his family had just moved to Black Hawk, Nebraska and he struggled with the move a lot harder than the others. Mr.Shimerda was extremely homesick and was not happy in this new country. He missed it so much that he thought the only solution was to take his own life. This was a very tragic event and both the Shimerda family and Burden family were devastated. "Old Mr. Shimerda is dead, and his family are in great distress. Ambrosch came over here in the middle of the night, and you must not bother them with questions" (Cather, 61). This event, although tragic, really brought everyone closer together. Another technique used in this book was betrayal. This was farther in the book towards the end. Antonia Shimerda was going to be married to Larry Donovan. When Larry loss his job, however, he no longer had intentions on marrying her. He stayed with her until she ran out of money and then he walked out of her life. He deserted her and left her pregnant with his child. Antonia was heart broken and yet she still tried to make the best of the situation. She loved the baby and was a wonderful mother. In the end of the book, she ends up having ten children. One last technique used I think was love. I do not mean this in the way between husband and wife love or anything but simply the loving friendship between Antonia Shimerda and Jim Burden. Their friendship was encouraging and it was enjoyable to read how they overcame their separation and maintained their friendship for life. All of these techniques used really added to the book and made it that much more interesting to read.

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