Antonia Compare Two Characters Willa

¶ … Antonia Compare two characters

Willa Cather's novel, "My Antonia" has been considered along the decades since its release in the 20s to be an important piece of writing of the American literature. This is not necessarily due to the actual plot of the novel but rather due to the special techniques used to portray the subject and its characters.

It is rather difficult to pin point a single scope of the novel because the use of frame narration offers many such ideas. One of the most important is that related to the journey, in a metaphoric sense, of the man through life. In this sense, "Caught in the momentum of shifting allegiances -- to the past and to the future -- Cather's migrants, and especially her narrator Jim Burden, embody the conflicts of individuals trying to straddle opposing worlds. While the old world survives in story and song and finally makes a home for itself in the very novel that Jim Burden creates and that we in turn read, the new-world impulse expresses itself in mobility and forgetfulness" (Holmes, 2009). Indeed there are several interpretations that could be provided for such a complex narration. In any of these interpretations, the key rests in the way in which the two characters, Jim and Antonia, are viewed and analyzed. It can be said that they are the cornerstones of the novel.

The novel, as it is constructed on the technique of frame narration, is in fact an old recollection of Jim's past, with no look towards the future. From this point-of-view, Jim becomes the main character and the driving force behind the narration. He in fact becomes the narrator and the perspective used to portray and construct the novel. It is his perspective and views that the author portrays and enable Jim to create an almost perfect memory of Antonia.

At the other end, Antonia represents a character but at the same time a symbol. While the former is easily explicable, the latter bears more weight. Antonia was a symbol for childhood, for untouched marshes in the country side, for fresh cut wood and all the elements which make a child's early life memorable. This aspect however, is expressed in the very first pages of the book, as "More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood. To speak her name was to call up pictures of people and places, to set a quiet drama going in one's brain." (Cather, 2008)

The two main characters Jim and Antonia represent two different worlds and places. Despite the fact that they grew up together, being influenced by the same extraordinary settings and natural beauties, they developed differently. At the moment of the narration, Jim was a successful lawyer, while Antonia was married to a successful man. From this point-of-view, it can be said that the perspectives were different. While she succeeded in marriage, he succeeded on his own. Even so, there is no disequilibrium because it can be said that the role of Antonia was by no means aimed to be that of a successful career woman, but rather that of the embodiment of perfectness of childhood. Thus, while one character had a targetable aim, the other, Antonia, had a symbolic purpose for Jim's life.

Antonia's role in the novel goes beyond that of encompassing the pure nature of childhood. It represents a clear window of strong powerful women. Better said, "This extremely influential character represents a positive compromise with feminist ideals. She is independent and strong while still living as a wife and mother" (Giglio, 2006). In this sense, Antonia is the embodiment of the successful woman, still not the average successful woman. This is largely due to the fact that the expression of her achievements is not always considered to be the common desire for women those days. Still, the symbolist part of this side of the character reflects in fact the social reality of that era and from Cather's point-of-view, it is a fair and clear recollection of her past.

Jim's complex character can be considered to be the image of the author as Jim's adventures and journeys are often similar if not identical to those of Cather's. However, the issue of journey and the mere fact that all the characters moved from one place to another represents an important point because it offers a view on the trials and experiences of the journey which is in fact the spirit of life. One of the reasons for which the entire frame of the novel took place in the train reveals just this fact that the physical journeys are a trying time, of recollection and reflection, when magical things could happen.