Literature Review: My Ántonia by Willa Cather
(Author’s Note: Along with highlighting current female politicians and activists and historical figures, we also want to produce a literature segment for the blog. We will review works that we have read and how we believe they pertain to the experiences of women. This paper in particular, I wrote for my women’s literature class last winter. We read works by
award-winning female authors and examined themes relating to womanhood and
feminism.)
Ántonia’s Pedestal and Jim’s
Inequality
The feminist movement began in the mid-19th
century with a desperate cry for equality. The novel, My Ántonia, is an American classic that portrays the formidable
strength of women on the prairie who are required to work as men in order to
survive and continue to support the family. Although Jim Burden views Ántonia
with a great deal of respect and reverence, he places her on a pedestal and
thereby denies himself equality with her.
The very beginning and end of the novel presents a Jim
Burden who has become disenchanted with his life. Only his childhood memories
of Ántonia provide his life with meaning, purpose and direction. Although Jim
is intimately absorbed with Ántonia, there is a feeling of Jim being external
to Ántonia. He never allows himself to be an equally strong character as she
is. Ántonia remains in charge of her own life to the best of her abilities. She
moves to Black Hawk to provide for her family like the other hired girls who
“did what [they] had set out to do, and sent home those hard-earned dollars”
(110). Jim in contrast admits that when he moves to Lincoln he is introduced to
the abstract world of ideas and “fades for a time” (139). When both Jim and
Ántonia are reprimanded for their youthful exploits at the dance tent, their
opposite reactions further delineates their inequality. Ántonia defiantly
leaves her employer saying “‘A girl like me has got to take her good times when
she can. Maybe there won’t be any tent next year’” (114). Jim on the other hand,
simply promises his grandmother that he will stop his frivolities. Ántonia is a
force to be reckoned with and Jim bends like the prairie grass at the whispers
of a breeze.
Jim feels that true happiness is to “be dissolved into
something complete and great” (17). Jim felt this way as a child, and as an
adult basking in the glorified memories of his youth. This euphoria is once
again discovered when Jim walks back into Ántonia’s life where he can melt into
the greatness that is Ántonia. His entire being has become reliant on the
radiance of Ántonia and in the 20 years that he was absent from its presence he
lost the art of living; he was devoid of the transcendental experience he knew
as a child. Jim tells Ántonia “The idea of you is part of my mind…You really
are a part of me” (171). Jim worships Ántonia and all that she represents to
him but he is unable to live a fulfilling life in which she has no main role.
Upon meeting one another after two decades apart Jim declares that Ántonia has
“lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as
universal and true” (186). However, Jim does not appear to have these universal
attitudes that he so adores in Ántonia. Jim affords Ántonia all the greatness
he can muster but never allows himself to become equally great thereby never really learning from Ántonia or truly incorporate her into himself.
In terms of women’s studies this view of Jim Burden and
Ántonia’s relationship demonstrates a frightening aspect of human equality.
Third-wave feminism is not about subjecting men to the rule of women, but
finding a true equality between the sexes. Jim Burden denies himself the
humanity he worships in Ántonia and thereby places her on a different plane
than he himself is on. By creating this inequality, Jim is never truly happy
except when he can lose his existence in that of Ántonia’s.
How do you involve the
men in your life in women’s studies and feminism while maintaining their worth
and equality and individuality?
Great article. I was just having a discussion with some people on another blog about how Church culture sometimes embodies the Jim-Antonia relationship. Sometimes men get put down as needing the priesthood because they aren't as spiritual, or we sometimes say that there will be more women in heaven because they are more righteous. It's a kind of pandering that really gives men an excuse to be incompetent. I appreciate the modern feminist movement because it expects real equality from *both* men and women, even though it can be a tricky rope to walk across.
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