My Antonia Bac Oral Analyse page 5, 6, 7
Publié le 18/01/2012
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My Antonia - Page 5,6,7
Introduction livre Willa Carter was born in Virginia, in West of the United States. She moved in Nebraska at 9, at the middle of her childhood. She is born in 1873 and she died in 1947. My Antonia is a novel. It was written in 1916/1917 and published in 1918. It deals with two childs, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerdas, and theirs families and friends. They both settle in Nebraska and discover a new life. They become friends. This novel is about their friendship. Now, I’m going to sum up the first chapter Introduction pages The story begins with the narrator Jim Burden, age 10, traveling by rail across the country to Nebraska. Having just lost both his parents in Virginia, he is travelling with a hired man Jake Marpole to live with his grandparents. During the journey Jim reads the "Life of Jesse James," which he thoroughly enjoys. Jim first hears of Ántonia on this journey, when a friendly conductor tells him that a Bohemian immigrant family, which can't really speak English, is going to Black Hawk, Nebraska and that they have a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl Jim travels all day through the huge expanse of Nebraska, and in the middle of the night they finally get off the train.
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especially in the West, because there are jobs and opportunities.
They want to live the American dream.Like Jim, theShimerdas have no one to turn to in a new, frightening place.
At the station, Jim is intrigued because they speak aforeign tongue.
Jim has never heard one.
It makes strangers mysterious because he doesn’t understand whatthey said.
They speak Although Jim does not realize it at the time, he and Ántonia are embarking on a sharedadventure, and their lives will intertwine in complex ways.
What begins as a casual encounter on a train will becomethe beginning of a mutual journey in the American West.II Jim’s adaptation to the prairie Jim's first impressionof the Nebraska frontier is that it is extremely vast and empty.
He feels like he is leaving civilization and he is.
He iscurious so he tried to see the landscape in the wagon box but there are no fences, no creeks, no trees, no hills or field.There is nothing to see.
He is in the middle of nowhere : ‘there was nothing but land : not a country at all, butthe material out of which country are made ’.
Everything that happens to him in Nebraska will be a newexperience, and he will have to learn new rules and codes of conduct.
He is leaving his past completely, and he willhave to become an entirely new person in the country.
For this reason, he feels "erased" and "blotted out".
Nothing isfamiliar but he doesn’t feel homesick.
He seems to be mature.
Everything bother him but he cans cope with it.He cans accept new situation even if it bother him.
Jim is not afraid.
He doesn’t pray but he is open to thefuture, to new possibilities.
He will have to adapt to accept his new life.
He will be transform by his new environment.This is a special night which symbolizes a new life.
It’s a transition between Virginia and Nebraska.
The prairieintroduces is new life.
III The culture shocks with the stereotype of the West The journey is long and it cans behazardous to travel, especially in the West according to the stereotypes.
However, Jim is not afraid but he should bebecause it’s dangerous to travel alone.
He is unaware of the danger.
He is naïve.
He has the behavior of agreenhorn, like immigrants.
He cans be cheat or become a prey to dishonest people.
He is carefree.
For example, hespends money for everything : « candy, oranges, brass collar, buttons, a watch-charm […] ».
He is also impressedby everything, like the conductor or Otto Fuchs.
When he meet a passenger conductor.
He is very impressed becausehe has a lot of experience of life : « he seemed to us an experienced and worldly man who had been everywhere ».
Theconductor also belong to a lot of fraternal orders.
He is a kind of model for Jim.
He also feels impressed because hedidn’t go anywhere out of Virginia and the farm.
He discovers the world.It’s also interesting to noticethat Jim is reading the biography of Jesse James.
He was a killer, a public enemy, an outlaw.
He robbed banks andtrains.
He was born in 1847 and died in 1882.
It’s interesting because Jim’s story takes place in theeighties of the 18th century.
He reads it at the same time that he is embarking on his own frontier adventure.
Duringthe novel, the books that Jim reads often acquire a particular significance when considered in the context of his life.Jesse James lived in Missouri, near of the Nebraska.
Jim identifies with Jesse James.
It’s a paradox because hekilled seventeen people.
Jim will compare real life with the fictional world that he is reading about, and he will findreality infinitely richer and more exciting.
Otto Fuchs is a perfect example of the comparison with the fictional world.According to Jim, he seems to have « stepped out of the page of Jesse James ».
Otto Fuchs works for Mrs Burden.
Hewore a sombrero, a bright buckle, a mustache like a horns.
He has long scar across one cheek.
He looks likely andferocious.
He looks like a desperado.
He is the stereotype of a West adventurer Conclusion Eventually, this chapterannounce the importance of the prairie.
Through Jim’s descriptions and feelings, the reader discovers the hugepower of the prairie.
However, many details are autobiographical, even if Willa Carter didn’t write anautobiography.
Willa felt the exact opposite than Jim when she moved on Nebraska.
It’s paradoxical because itshould be the contrary, but it shows that she inspired of her own life.
Document demandé:http://www.devoir-de-philosophie.com/commentaire-4051.html.
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