My Antonia- Values and Attitudes

In the book My Antonia, the author writes from two different perspectives. At the very beginning of this book, the narrator is an unknown character. Soon after the book starts off the narrator changes to Jim Burden and then the rest of the book is written from his first person perspective. I do like it better when the book is written in a third person perspective, but I did not think having the book told by one of its characters in this case was a bad thing. In a book that is written in first person, you read the book as one of the characters see it. In contrast if it is in third person you get to see the books events through the eyes of an unknown person who is not a character in the book at all. I think that this book shows many values that the author, Willa Cather, may have had. The book is set in Nebraska during the times of pioneers, so I think that the author valued pioneers. Pioneers had to live off the land, and they lived a very simple lifestyle. I think that the author values pioneers because of where the setting of the book was. The narrator of this book, Jim Burden, is orphaned and travels across the country to go stay with his grandparents who live on a farm in Nebraska. Jim's grandparents live off the land and have a very hard working lifestyle, which is something else that I think is valued by the author. I think that the author also values self-reliance, which is shown throughout this book. The author shows the Burden families independence many times during this book. The pioneers had to farm or hunt for their food, and they all have a backbone when it comes to hard work. In this book we learn a lot about the lifestyle of the pioneers and the author does a great job with combining literature and history. The author brings the history of the pioneers and writes a book about their lifestyle.

Bibliography

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1996. Print.