My Antonia

Ántonia Shimerda, the young Bohemian girl whom Jim meets when he first arrives in Nebraska, is the central figure of his childhood memories because she represents the conditions of the Nebraskan frontier and “the whole adventure” (x) of his youth. Ántonia is four years older than Jim, and she is pretty with “big and warm” eyes, curly brown hair, and cheeks that glow with a “rich, dark colour” (23). She is eager to learn English from Jim and industrious in her farm work. Jim and Ántonia are regular companions exploring the world of the prairie and hearing the stories of the immigrants from different countries trying to eke out livelihoods on the land. Although Ántonia loves learning about housekeeping from Grandmother Burden, after her father dies, she works like a man in the fields, helping her brother. Ántonia is proud of her physical strength and enjoys being out-of-doors, but Grandmother Burden gets her a job in town in the Harling household to save her from becoming too “rough” (125). Mrs. Harling, a Norwegian immigrant, and Ántonia get along well with each other since they both have “strong, independent natures,” and love “children and animals and music, and rough play and digging in the earth” (180).

Instead of allowing her situation as an unwed mother to defeat her, Ántonia is an excellent mother and ultimately triumphs by marrying another Bohemian, Anton Cuzak, and raising many children on her own farm. She is an independent spirit, defined by her loving nature and refusal to conform to traditional gender roles. Jim sees her as a muse: “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” (353). Ántonia is a foil for Jim because their parallel childhoods lead to diverging paths in adulthood: Jim goes into the wider world while Ántonia stays on the prairie. Ántonia establishes a happy, thriving family life while Jim finds himself in a disappointing marriage. Ántonia works with her hands while Jim studies law and works with his mind. Ántonia does not philosophize; she takes things as they are and makes the best of them while Jim is preoccupied by things that might have been. Ántonia shares a special relationship with her father and retains her connection with him even after he passes away.

Because the novel is told from Jim’s point of view, Ántonia is never truly an independent character: Even the title My Ántonia frames her as belonging to Jim. She can be seen as an extended metaphor for the Nebraska countryside, which is wild and untamed but grows to be fertile and cultivated. Ántonia is elemental, representing a connection between humans and the land that is both contemporary and ancient. Though Ántonia is not a Nebraska native, she is the most American character in the novel because she endures through hardship and thrives with the land.

Ántonia’s father, Mr. Shimerda, is “tall and slender, and his thin shoulders stooped” (24). When Jim first meets the Bohemian immigrant, he notices “how white and well-shaped” his hands are; “they looked calm, somehow, and skilled” (24). Although Shimerda’s eyes are melancholy and he speaks no English, he looks at the Burdens “understandingly” (24) and is unfailingly courteous. Shimerda is always neatly dressed and dignified, with “a silk scarf of a dark bronze-green, carefully crossed and held together by a red coral pin” (25). He earnestly wants his beloved daughter, Ántonia, to learn English.

Unlike Ántonia, who is a blank slate when she comes to the United States, Shimerda has an entire life that he leaves behind after emigrating. In Bohemia, he played the violin, earning good wages at weddings and dances, and he also worked as a skilled weaver. He loves the arts and misses the closeness of his friends and family. He married Ántonia’s mother out of a sense of chivalry and fell out with his family over it. It was not his choice to come to America, rather, he fulfilled his wife’s wishes to secure better opportunities for her son.

Shimerda is a tragic character because he never fully adjusts to life on the prairie. His family starts out at a disadvantage after being swindled by Krajiek and does not even have a proper home in which to spend the winter. His experience exemplifies the fantasy of immigrating to America versus the reality of it: Mrs. Shimerda believes that Ambrosch will have more opportunities in America than in Bohemia, but those opportunities come at a high cost and are not guaranteed.

Shimerda is a foil for Jim in that he is an important man in Ántonia’s life and a lover of the arts. Jim shares a special connection with Shimerda, and it serves as a point of connection between him and Ántonia after Shimerda passes away. Whereas Ántonia represents the Nebraska landscape, Shimerda is its complete opposite, as his refinement and cultivated sensibilities do not help him adapt to his harsh surroundings. His death by suicide presents Ántonia with the first hardship she must overcome, and he is the first man to leave her, followed by Jim and, finally, Donovan. 

The rest of the Shimerda family is comprised of Ántonia’s mother, Mrs. Shimerda, her younger sister, Yulka, and her older brother, Ambrosch.

Mrs. Shimerda is strikingly different from her refined, sensitive husband. She grumbles about Ántonia’s reading lessons with Jim “but realized it was important that one member of the family should learn English” (30). Mrs. Shimerda struggles with housekeeping on the prairie and expects the Burdens to bring provisions to help them through the winter. Despite her difficult personality, Mrs. Shimerda is a survivor and manages to get her family through the winter after her husband’s death with the help of Ambrosch and Ántonia. Mrs. Shimerda does try to reciprocate the Burdens’ kindness with a gift of her treasured dried mushrooms, but the Burdens do not recognize the brown shavings, symbolizing the difficulty of cultural translation that the Shimerdas face.

Ambrosch is strict as the new head of the household after his father’s death. Mrs. Shimerda and the girls defer to him though Ántonia remains competitive with him in her physical labor. He is “short and broad-backed, with […] a wide, flat face” and “sly and suspicious” (23) eyes. Ambrosch is a devout Catholic, a side of him that is revealed after Shimerda’s death. Later, Jim learns that Ambrosch married “a very fat wife, who had a farm of her own” and “bossed her husband” (349).

Yulka is a younger version of Ántonia and takes over her reading lessons once Ántonia is required to work on the farm.

Jim’s grandmother is representative of the American-born pioneer woman on the Nebraskan prairie: industrious, charitable to her neighbors, and courageous. At 55, Grandmother Emmaline Burden is “quick-footed and energetic in all her movements . . . a strong woman, of unusual endurance” (10-11). She has a “lively intelligence” (11) and always talks “to herself or to the Lord, if there was no one else to listen” (111). Jim notices that she appears to be “often thinking of things that were far away” (10), as she copes with homesickness for her old Virginia farm. Grandmother Burden succeeds in keeping her husband, her grandson, and the two farmhands “warm and comfortable and well-fed” (66) despite the harsh conditions. She wonders why Mrs. Shimerda cannot support her family equally as well as she equates the Burdens’ move out West to the Shimerdas’ immigration.

Grandmother Burden’s Christianity prompts her to help her Bohemian neighbors with gifts of food, as well as with words of comfort when Shimerda dies. She believes “good Christian people” are “their brothers’ keepers” (78) even though she suspects the Shimerdas will not survive life on the prairie. The hardy Grandmother Burden keeps a rattlesnake cane with her when she walks to her garden, because “she had killed many rattlers on her way back and forth” (15). The cane, like Moses’s staff, symbolizes her staunch leadership and fearlessness in difficult times.

Jim’s white-bearded grandfather is the wise patriarch of his family, dignified, taciturn, and very religious. Jim is actually “a little in awe of him” (12). Grandfather Josiah Burden works in the fields with his hired farmhands and reads from the Bible to the household every night before bedtime. Since he talks very little; it is chiefly through his prayers “that we got to know his feelings and his views upon things” (85). According to Jim, his devoutly Protestant grandfather “was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and hurt people’s feelings” (87), yet when the Catholic Shimerda makes the sign of the cross over Jim, Grandfather Burden tells Jim: “The prayers of all good people are good” (88).

After Shimerda’s death, Grandfather Burden is determined that no road will be built over Mr. Shimerda’s grave, and Mrs. Shimerda asks Burden to say a prayer at the burial. Jim thinks that Grandfather Burden’s prayer is “remarkable” (117), full of forgiveness and urging justice for the Mrs. Shimerda and her children. After Ambrosch misuses some equipment lent to him, Grandfather Burden does not reprimand him, but instead continues to give them good advice.

Otto Fuchs and Jake Marpole are the two hired laborers who work for Jim Burden’s grandparents on their Nebraska farm. For Jim, they are “like older brothers” (144). Jim had initially travelled on the train from Virginia to Nebraska under the care of Jake, an illiterate “mountain boy” (3), who had previously worked for Jim’s father. Otto emigrated from Austria to America as a young boy and had “led an adventurous life in the Far West among mining-camps and cow outfits” (12). Otto seems to have stepped from the pages of The Life of Jesse James and fulfills Jim’s desire to meet a real cowboy. Otto tells Jim exciting stories about his life, displays his cowboy boots and spurs, and teaches Jim how to ride his new pony, “Dude.”

Jim is most impressed by the integrity of the two farmhands: “those two fellows had been faithful to us through sun and storm,” with an inner code of standards “that cannot be bought in any market” (144). Despite being paid only one or two dollars a day, these two men are “always ready to work overtime and to meet emergencies” (68). Even though Jake has “a violent temper. . . he was so soft-hearted that anyone could impose upon him” (67-68). Jake becomes ashamed if he ever forgets himself and swears in front of Grandmother Burden, and Jim notices that these two men conscientiously do their chores even during the freezing wintertime. When the Burdens move into town and no longer need the farmhands, Jake and Otto help the family to relocate and prepare their new house before departing on a westbound train.