LIT 132w: Cather / My Antonia

LIT 132: Comparative American Literatures
Summer 2001

Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)
From one of the greatest storytellers of the American midwest we are reading what is widely regarded as the best of her prairie novels. A classic of 20th-century American fiction, Cather's My Ántonia helped vault her into recognition as a major artist, eventually winning the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours in 1923. Cather's other novels include:
• O Pioneers! (1913)
• The Song of the Lark (1915)
• A Lost Lady (1923)
• The Professor's House (1925)
• Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
• Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940)

Reading assignments for My Ántonia:

for first lecture (Thursday, 7/26): read pp. 1-116
for second lecture (Friday, 7/27): read pp. 117-end

Pre-reading questions:

The epigraph to this novel, "Optima dies . . . prima fugit" means (roughly), "The best days are the first to flee." As you read the novel, think about whether or not this is an appropriate epigraph for the book. What is the effect of having this epigraph in front of you as you read?
The introduction is narrated by an "old friend" of Jim Burden's, but we are told little else about this narrator. What can you gather about this unnamed "I"? Do you think it is a woman or a man? Does it matter? Why or why not?
This is famously a book about the natural landscape. An earlier paperback edition has a picture of the plains and a plow rather than a person, as on our cover. As you read, ask yourself what kind of role the land is playing the book. Does that role stay consistent, or does it change? How? Why? Is the land in this novel always 'promised' land? Why or why not?
What does this book seem to say about the possibility of harmonious relations between or among different groups (including, but not limited to, immigrant groups) in America?
The back of our volume describes Ántonia as "the ideal vision of the earth mother." What does this mean? Do you agree with this description?
What is Jim's relationship with -- or attitude toward -- Ántonia? Does it change over time? If so, why, and in what ways?
What are your impressions of Jim as a narrator? How does he tell the story? Is he good at it? What does he focus on? What does his storytelling tell us about him? Would you call him a reliable narrator? Why or why not?
Why is so much importance given to Mr. Shimerda's suicide in the first half of the book?
What is the role of those odd fellows, Pavel and Peter?
When you have finished reading the book, go back to the introduction and re-read it. Then read the original 1918 introduction to the novel, which is included as an appendix in our volume (pp. 241-244). How are they different? In what ways do you think having only the original introduction would have shaped your reading of the book differently?

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