My_Antonia

Jeff Davis Period C Honors Lit 10 1/6/2010 A Persistence of Memory “The memory's wiles are cruel. In its silence, we forget. And in its perversion, it binds our hearts firmly.” -Vexen, Kingdom Hearts by Daisuke Watanabe Over the course of Willa Cather’s novel My Antonia, published in 1918, the past is seen through a blurred and fragmented perspective. Jim Burden remembers his youth with an unrealistic fondness that may not be echoed by the other figures in his childhood. His version of events lays great emphasis on the quiet dignity of prairie life, but glosses over the hardships that his neighbors experienced. When Jim looks back, he sees what he wants to see, much as an old man talks about the “good ole’ days”, when those days often aren’t worth the praise they receive. Jim then seeks any connection with his childhood life with almost obsessive fervor. This interpretation of prairie life, coupled with dissatisfaction with his own existence, leads to Jim’s growing fixation with the past. Jim’s preoccupation with the Nebraskan countryside and the lifestyle that comes with it began when he first left Black Hawk. For a while he enjoys being on his own, content to study and explore the academic world. The only person with whom he connects is Gaston Cleric, his professor who he also considers his superior, so their relationship is not nearly as close as one with someone he might see as his equal. This lack of significant relationships causes him to become intensely nostalgic of his childhood. The nostalgia he is experiencing serves as an anchor for him, so he can endure through his day to day life: “But whenever my consciousness was quickened, all those early friends were quickened within it, and in some strange way they accompanied me through all my new experiences” (125). He yearns for “the ole’ days” and this, while keeping him emotionally stable, distances him from society and disables him from functioning successfully within it. This behavior continues until the reappearance of Lena Lingard. One day Lena Lingard shows up at Jim’s door, and she changes his self-contained behavior dramatically. They begin going out places with Lena’s friends, attending plays and other events, and eventually strike up a relationship. The relationship in question however lacks emotional attachment and intimacy. It serves, for Jim at least, simply as an attachment to his former home and as a social connection. He sees her only for the life she used to live, and how that fits into his version of reality: “I watched Lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and cared-for, and thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the snow had begun to fly, and how Crazy Mary chased her round and round the cornfields” (127-128). Lena is also a substitute for the person Jim truly has feelings for, Antonia. Lena is a strong, street-smart young woman, and it is likely that she is aware of how Jim sees her, but doesn’t confront him about it, because she may be aware of his present state of mind. Antonia is a childhood friend of Jim’s who he admires and cares for with a fierce enthusiasm. Before Jim went off to college, he and Antonia shared a pseudo-relationship with one another that was rather emotionally intense. Jim leaves for college and his perception of her changes, creating a larger than life girl who doesn’t truly exist. To Jim, Antonia becomes a living representation of the Nebraskan prairie, and his feelings for her become entwined with his feelings of homesickness and nostalgia. Eventually Jim goes back to visit Antonia in Black Hawk, and he is disconcerted by how much she has changed, but then warms up to her because she had a quality that “still had that something which fires the imagination, [which] could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things” (167). He sees Antonia as an earth-mother figure, a once beautiful and wild woman, and later in life becomes a powerful protector of the land and her children. Ultimately, Jim returns to Lincoln unsatisfied. His hometown was not what he was searching for and he unfortunately still thinks that is what he needs in his life, but is incapable of seizing it. Jim always dwells on his past because he is disappointed with his material success and lack of interpersonal relations. He has nothing in his life that truly fulfills him, so he unconsciously twists and reshapes his memory, dulling the sharp edges off the negative aspects and glorifying the positive ones. Having been lost in this reverie, Jim overlooked the defining experiences that help one to find their own identity. These delusions have no real basis, so it is impossible for him to gain what he seeks when he tries to reconnect with the place and people he once lived with. In the end, he returns to the city, unfulfilled in his desire for something meaningful to make his life more than mere existence, but one filled with rich feeling and experience.