My Ántonia (1918) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters edit see section history

• Antonia: Add a description of this character.
• Jim Burden: The book's narrator, who tells the story of his youth spent in Nebraska and the development of his friendship with Ántonia Shimerda.
• Ántonia Shimerda: The focus of Jim's story. At the time of the story she is a teenage girl caring for her Bohemian family.
• Jake
• Jimmy
• Mrs. Shimerda
• Tony
• Jake Marpole: One of the farm hands on Jim's father's farm, who goes with Jim to Nebraska.
• Otto Fuchs: A farm hand on Jim's grandfather's farm.
• Ambrosch Shimerda: Ántonia's oldest brother. His name is actually Ambrož, but Cather spells the name by its pronunciation.
• Nina
• Mr. Ordinsky
• Anna
• Mrs. Cutter
• Mrs. Burden
• Lincoln
• Mrs. Gardener
• Yulka Shimerda: Ántonia's younger sister. Her name is actually Julka.
• Leo
• Marek
• Ambrosch
• Mrs. Thomas
• Yulka
• Martha
• Cuzak
• Marek Shimerda: Ántonia's youngest brother, a mentally-challenged boy.
• Widow Steavens
• Mary
• Krajiek: The Shimerdas' miserly landlord.
• Marguerite
• Sally
• Johnnie
• Pavel: One of the two Russian brothers who live near Jim's grandfather.
• Samson
• Peter: One of the two Russian brothers who live near Jim's grandfather.
• Wick Cutter: A moneylender in Black Hawk.
• Anton Jelinek: Another Bohemian who helps the Shimerdas.
• Christian Harling: A grain merchant and cattle buyer; the Burdens' neighbor in Black Hawk.
• Mrs. Harling: Christian Harling's wife, a pleasant Norwegian woman.
• Charley Harling: The Harlings' oldest son.
• Julia Harling: One of the Harlings' daughters.
• Salley Harling: One of the Harlings' daughters.
• Frances Harling: One of the Harlings' daughters, who helps her father with all his business concerns.
• Nina Harling: The Harlings' youngest daughter.
• Lena Lingard: One of the hired girls in Black Hawk, and Ántonia's friend.
• Chris Lingard: Lena's father, a farmer.
• Tiny Soderball: One of the hired girls in Black Hawk, and Ántonia's friend.
• Mary Dusak: One of the three Marys; a hired girl in Black Hawk, and Ántonia's friend.
• Anna Hansen: One of the hired girls in Black Hawk, and Ántonia's friend. Called "Norwegian Anna" for most of the story.
• Larry Donovan: A passenger conductor, and Ántonia's frequent dancing partner.
• Gaston Cleric: Head of the Latin Department at Jim's university.

Quotes edit see section history

• “When I closed my eyes I could hear them all laughing — the Danish laundry girls and the three Bohemian Marys. Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over me, as it had never done before, the relationship between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry. I understood that clearly, for the first time. This revelation seemed to me inestimably precious.”

• “During that burning day when we were crossing Iowa, our talk kept returning to a central figure, a Bohemian girl whom we had both known long ago. More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood.”

• ““Why aren’t you always nice like this, Tony?”“How nice?”“Why, just like this; like yourself. Why do you all the time try to be like Ambrosch?”She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. “If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us.””

• “She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things.”

• “"At any rate, that is happiness,; to be dissolved into something complete and great."”

  Jim Burden

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

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• that legend has stuck in my mind, and sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom.

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• Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.

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• There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

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• for more than anything else I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping...

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• Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons.

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• I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister-anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me.'

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• 'This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.' It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer.

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• Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be.

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• As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the color 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.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Black Hawk: The little town in Nebraska where Jim lives with his grandparents.
• Nebraska
• Virginia
• Omaha
• Chicago
• Denver
• Shimerdas
• New York
• Bohemia
• Vienna
• Kansas City
• Russia
• Lincoln: Where Jim goes to the university.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Windlass: A mechanical device used to pull in cable, chain or rope.
• Lariat: A lasso; a long noosed rope used to catch animals.
• Quirt: A weighted, short-handled whip made of braided rawhide or leather.
• Arroyo: A stream or brook; alternately, a dry water course.
• Quinsy: A painful pus-filled inflammation of the tonsils and surrounding tissues; usually a complication of tonsillitis.
• Bole: The trunk of a tree; the main structural member of a tree that supports the branches and is supported by and directly attached to the roots.
• Lassitude: Languor: a feeling of lack of interest or energy.
• Pinafore: A sleeveless dress resembling an apron; worn over other clothing.
• Freshet: The occurrence of a water flow, resulting from sudden rain or melting snow.
• Creche: A representation of the Nativity scene.
• Dray: A low, heavy horse cart without sides, used for haulage.
• Schottische: Aa German round dance resembling a slow polka.
• Supine: Describe this term.
• Parsimonious

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by A Farewell to Arms, and followed by Their Eyes Were Watching God .

Preceded by The Stranger, and followed by The Counterfeiters.

Preceded by Sometimes a Great Notion, and followed by Mulengro.

Preceded by Little Women, and followed by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Preceded by Tobacco Road, and followed by Farewell, My Lovely.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Willa Cather (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3505.A87 M8 1994e
• Dewey: 823.91

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › United States › Classics › Cather, Willa
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( C ) › Cather, Willa
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Wikipedia: Really nice overview & summary of the novel. Don't miss the visualization of all the characters in the novel—graphically rendered like they're on a social network.

More Books Like This edit see section history