Study Guide: My Àntonia by Willa Cather

The novel is divided intoan Introduction and five "Books," whose titles are printed below and underlined.

Introduction

1. By what career does Jim Burden make his living?

2. The year is about 1918. What is your picture of the train he travels on?

3. Who else is with him?

4. What is the topic of their conversation?

5. What has Jim been doing to amuse himself on his long trips across the country?

6. What does he show to his friend several months later?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 1 and 2

1. The year is now about 1880. What is your picture of the train Jim is traveling on?

2. How does Nebraska differ from Jim's Virginia home?

3. Describe briefly the following characters

a. Grandfather Burden

b. Grandmother Burden

c. Jake Marpole

d. Otto Fuchs

4. How is the Burdens' house different from most of their neighbors' houses?

5. How does the garden make Jim feel?

What is Jim's definition of happiness?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapter 3

1. Name and describe the Shimerda children.

2. How is Mr. Shimerda different from his wife?

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this family? What are their chances of surviving in frontier Nebraska?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 4-6

1. How do the children entertain themselves?

2. Who is Krajiek? Why do the Shimerdas stay with him?

3. What is Jim learning about people from a national background that is different from his own?

4. What is Jim teaching Antonia?

5. What does he learn from her about badgers?

6. What does Mr. Shimerda promise to give to Jim? What does that gift tell about him?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 7-8

1. Why does Antonia use a "superior tone" with Jim? Why does he resent it?

2. What happens at the prairie-dog town?

3. What does Jim learn about his rattler? Why does he feel that he is a hero anyway?

4. How do people feel about Peter and Pavel? Why?

5. What story does Antonia tell Jim about the two Russians?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapter 9

1. What changes does the first snowfall bring?

2. Why does Jim have to stay inside? What would we call his illness today?

3. What was their Saturday night entertainment?

4. Where do they go to church on Sunday?

5. What interesting story does Otto tell about his trip from Austria to America?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 10-13

1. Compare the Shimerdas' experience with winter to the Burdens'.

2. What do the individual reactions of the various family members tell you about each one?

3. How was Mr. Shimerda affected by his visit to the Burdens? How is Mrs. Shimerda's reaction different from his? What does that tell you about them as a couple?

4. What does Antonia reveal about Mrs. Shimerda's motives in coming to America? What is Jim's blunt but true reply?

5. How old was Jim when the big snowstorm hit? What made the day unnatural?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 14-16

1. What startling news does Jim receive when he wakes on the morning of January 22?

2. What rumor does Jake start that grandmother stops?

3. How does Jim react to the death?

4. Who is Anton Jelinek? What kind of person is he? Why has he come?

5. What is Jelinek's concern about Mr. Shimerda? What is Jim's grandfather's reply?

6. Who makes the coffin?

7. What problems do they have in getting a grave site?

8. What types of stories does Otto tell Jim that might not have been the best for an eleven-year old to hear at that time?

9. Where do they finally bury Mr. Shimerda?

10. What insensitive thing does Mrs. Shimerda want Yulka to do? What does grandmother do about it?

11. What does Mr. Burden do and say at the funeral?

12. What does grandmother have Otto Fuchs do? Why?

13. What remarkable thing takes place that preserves the gravesite?

Book I: The Shimerdas , Chapters 17-19

1. Describe spring on the Nebraska prairie.

2. What improvements have been made in the Shimerdas' situation?

3. How does Antonia look at age fifteen? What changes have come in her life since her father's death?

4. What would her father have thought about her not getting an education? Why?

5. What does Mrs. Burden think about the changes in Antonia?

6. What causes the difficulty between the Shimerdas and the Burdens? Why is the grandfather so understanding?

7. What is grandfather's plan to get Antonia away from her brother's mastery?

8. What does grandfather realize about Nebraska cornfields that Jim recalls as remarkable when he later writes the story?

9. Jim and the Shimerdas have lived in Nebraska for about a year. List at least three things that Jim has learned in that time. Why do you think the book is titled "The Shimerdas"?

10. What prophecy does Antonia make at the end of the book?

Book II: The Hired Girls, Chapters 1-8

1. What does Jim lose by having to leave the farm? What does he gain by moving into Black Hawk?

2. Describe the following:

a. Mr. Harling

b. Mrs. Harling

c. Frances

d. Charley

e. Julia

f. Sally

g. Nina

3. What forms of entertainment does Jim find in town?

4. Why does winter in town seem worse than it did on the farm?

5. What are the stories about the following?

a. Crazy Mary and Lena Lingard

b. The tramp that comes to the Iversons during harvest

c. Blind Samson D'Arnault

6. Why do you think Willa Cather has put these people and their stories in her novel?

7. Who are the Vannis, and what do they bring to town?

Book II: The Hired Girls, Chapters 9-12

1. What is the "curious social situation" Jim describes in Ch. 9?

2. What impression do the townspeople have of the hired girls?

3. Since Jim is actually writing the story some years later, he has seen a truth about these girls. What advantage have they had as time has gone on?

4. How does the town's attitude influence Sylvester Lovett?

5. What does Jim think of that attitude? Do you think he's being hypocritical? (After all, we know something about his own marriage form the book's introduction.)

6. What does the music at Vannis' tent do to Antonia?

7. What kind of people are the Cutters, and why does Antonia leave the Harlings to work for them?

8. What new skill does Lena help Antonia to develop?

9. Jim is beginning to show some discontent with Black Hawk. What specific things does he like?

Dislike?

10. What happens one night when Jim takes Antonia home after a dance?

Book II: The Hired Girls, Chapters 13-15

1. Why does Jim have to stop going to dances at the Firemen's Hall?

2. What revelation does Jim share with Antonia about his graduation speech?

3. What revelation does Antonia share with Jim about her parents?

4. Describe the scene that Jim and the girls see at sunset. What is its significance to Cather's view of Nebraska and its people?

5. What horrifying experience does Jim go through to spare Antonia? What does it reveal about Wick Cutter?

Book III: Lena Lingard

1. This book appears not to focus on Antonia. What do we learn about her in it?

2. What influence does Gaston Cleric have on Jim?

3. What two quotations from Virgil arrest Jim's attention? How do these words give some insight into what Cather has done in My Antonia?

4. How has Lena changed? Why does Jim find her an interesting companion?

5. What are her failings as a dressmaker? Why do her customers forgive her for them?

6. What insight does she give Jim into Ole Benson's behavior?

7. Why does Lena not care to get married?

8. How does Jim's education at Lincoln close?

Book IV: The Pioneer Woman's Story

1. How old is Jim when this part of the story takes place?

2. Why does Frances Harling call Tony "Poor Antonia"?

3. How does Jim react to this news?

4. What is Jim's estimate of Tiny at the end of chapter 1?

5. What does Mrs. Steavens add to Antonia's story?

6. Why would she probably not call her "Poor Antonia?"

7. What has happened to Gaston Cleric?

8. What do Jim and Antonia share about their feelings for each other?

9. What women make up this "Pioneer Woman's Story"? What composite picture do you get of the pioneer woman?

Book V: Cuzak's Boys

1. How many years have elapsed? Why has Jim taken so long to make contact with Antonia?

2. What report has Jim received about Antonia from Tiny and Lena?

3. In what ways is Antonia still the young girl of Jim's memories?

4. In what ways is she a mature person?

5. Who are her children? Why are they not presented in order? Which do you like best? Why do you think Leo is Antonia's favorite?

6. How has Antonia obviously prepared the children to know Jim?

7. This book wraps up the story of some of the characters about whom we have heard little. What do you learn about the following:

a. Ambrosch Shimerda

b. The three Bohemian Marys, especially Mary Svoboda

c. Lena

d. Antonia's illegitimate daughter

e. The Cutters

8. Why is Anton Cuzak a good match for Antonia? In what way is Antonia able to "resolve" or "make up for" the problems her father went through in the past generation by marrying Anton in this generation?

9. What does Jim plan to do in the future to keep contact with Antonia and her family?

10. Why, when the whole book has recalled the past and communicated to us quite effectively, are the closing words "we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past"?