My Antonia

Introductory Chunk: Willa Cather in her novel My Antonia (yes, a signal phrase) offers her view of life during the pioneer time.

Chunk 1: How would My Ántonia be different if it were told from Ántonia's perspective?

The story would have been all about Antonia and her life experiences instead of Jim Burden's.

Chunk 2: How effective is Cather, a woman, at narrating a story from the point of view of a man? Does Jim sound like a man writing, or does the narrative sound like a woman pretending to be a man?

She is very effective. Jim does sound like a man writing and he does not sound like a woman at all.

Chunk 3: Why do you think Jim changed the title from Antonia to My Antonia?

I think he changed the title because he felf like he was very close to Antonia, that maybe at one time, he thought they were a couple, they were close friends, and he always did things for her.

Concluding Chunk

Based on this information, I reccomend My Antonia to anyone who likes old western living books.

Effects of Setting

Author Willa Cather embedded literary devices, such as metaphors, similes, and personification, within her writing. 

"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 colour 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."

"The grave, with its tall red grass that was never mowed, was like a little island."

"Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie.  The wind that sweeps in from the open country strips away all the leafy screens that hide one yard from another in summer, and the houses seem to draw closer together.  The roofs, that looked so far away across the green treetops, now stare you in the face, and they are so much uglier than when their angles were softened by vines and shrubs.


Chunk #1:  Comment the effect of the setting on the characters within the novel.
The effect the setting has on the characters is critical to the story and helps develop the characters into who they're going to be later in the story.
Chunk #2: discuss the effect a setting on you, including imagery (lots of adjectives) and a simile or a metaphor as you describe the land.
My room is like my own private island. No one bothers me, I do what I want and its the perfect place for me to escape if I've had a bad day or am just feeling down. My room is full of adventure and action based in places that I read in my books. My room is the one and only place I would like to be all day long.