Thursday, March 6, 2014

My Antonia


My Antonia Chapter 1-19

-       Why does Willa Cather use an outside view to introduce the background of the story? How does this change the reader’s view?
-       How does Jim being an orphan change how Nebraska affects him? How does being a family of immigrants affect the Shimerdas?
-       What is Jim’s first impression of Nebraska? How does he interact with the nature?
-       What is Jim and Antonia’s first interaction?
-       How does the Russian family of immigrants compare to the Shimerdas?
-       Why might Mr. Shimerda be sad?
-       “I buttoned up my jacket and raced my shadow home” (73). What might this symbolize?
-       What roles do sex play in the story? “I was a boy and she was a girl, and I resented her protecting manner” (73). “I began to think that I had longed for this opportunity, and had hailed it with joy” (75). What opportunity is he talking about?
-       “Our lives centered around warmth and food, and the return on the men at nightfall” (85).
-       Was Mr. Shimerdas’ death a suicide?
-       How does community and society affect the on goings in their town?
-       “Was she going to grow up boastful like her mother, I wondered?” (116). Why is Antonia acting the way she is?
-       What is the tension between the Burdens and Shimerdas?
-       “Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us” (126). Why will they be harder? Because there is no head of a family? Because they are immigrants? 

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