Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page i My Antonia` Willa Sibert Cather WITH RELATED READINGS THE EMC MASTERPIECE SERIES Access Editions EMC/Paradigm Publishing St. Paul, Minnesota Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page ii Staff Credits Laurie Skiba Valerie Murphy Managing Editor Editorial Assistant Brenda Owens Lori Ann Coleman High School Editor Editorial Consultant Becky Palmer Shelley Clubb Associate Editor Production Manager Nichola Torbett Jennifer Wreisner Associate Editor Senior Designer Jennifer Anderson Leslie Anderson Assistant Editor Senior Design and Production Specialist Paul Spencer Parkwood Composition Art and Photo Researcher Compositor Cover photo of Webster County, Nebraska: © Farrell Grehan/CORBIS Cover Photo of Willa Cather: © Bettmann/CORBIS Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cather, Willa, 1873-1947. My Ántonia / Willa Sibert Cather. p. cm. – (The EMC Masterpiece Series Access Editions) Contents: My Ántonia – Introduction to the 1926 edition / by Willa Cather – Letter to Frances Samlund / by Anna Pavelka – [Excerpt] from History of the State of Nebraska / by William G. Cutter and A.T. Andreas – The Fir Tree / by Hans Christian Andersen – Mint Snowball / Naomi Shihab Nye – The Prairie Grass Dividing / by Walt Whitman –Riding into California / by Shirley Geok-lin Lim – Plot analysis of My Ántonia – Creative writing activities – Critical writing activities –Projects. Summary: In the late nineteenth century, a fourteen-year-old immi- grant girl from Bohemia and a ten-year-old orphan boy arrive in Black Hawk, Nebraska, and in teaching each other, form a friendship that will last a lifetime. ISBN 0-8219-2509-1 1. Frontier and pioneer life—Fiction. 2. Farmers’ spouses—Fiction. 3. Women pioneers—Fiction. 4. Married women—Fiction. 5. Farm life— Fiction. 6. Nebraska—Fiction. 7. Cather, Willa, 1873-1947. My Ántonia. [1. Farm life—Nebraska—Fiction. 2. Frontier and pioneer life— Nebraska—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Nebraska—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series. PS3505.A87 M8 2002 813’.52 [Fic]—dc21 2001055669 ISBN 0-8219-2509-1 Copyright © 2003 by EMC Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be adapted, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permis- sion from the publisher. Published by EMC/Paradigm Publishing 875 Montreal Way St. Paul, Minnesota 55102 800-328-1452 www.emcp.com E-mail: [email protected] Printed in the United States of America. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 xxx 07 06 05 04 03 02 Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page iii Table of Contents The Life and Works of Willa Sibert Cather . v Time Line of Cather’s Life and Works . vii The Historical Context of My Ántonia . ix Characters in My Ántonia . xv Echoes . xx Images of My Ántonia . xxii Introduction . 1 Book I, The Shimerdas . 5 Chapter 1 . 7 Chapter 2 . 10 Chapter 3 . 16 Chapter 4 . 21 Chapter 5 . 24 Chapter 6 . 27 Chapter 7 . 30 Chapter 8 . 35 Chapter 9 . 42 Chapter 10 . 47 Chapter 11 . 52 Chapter 12 . 55 Chapter 13 . 58 Chapter 14 . 62 Chapter 15 . 68 Chapter 16 . 74 Chapter 17 . 77 Chapter 18 . 81 Chapter 19 . 87 Respond to the Selection, Book I . 89 Book II, The Hired Girls . 93 Chapter 1 . 95 Chapter 2 . 98 Chapter 3 . 102 Chapter 4 . 105 Chapter 5 . 111 Chapter 6 . 113 Chapter 7 . 118 Chapter 8 . 126 Chapter 9 . 129 TABLE OF CONTENTS iii Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page iv Chapter 10 . 134 Chapter 11 . 137 Chapter 12 . 140 Chapter 13 . 147 Chapter 14 . 150 Chapter 15 . 158 Respond to the Selection, Book II . 163 Book III, Lena Lingard . 167 Chapter 1 . 169 Chapter 2 . 173 Chapter 3 . 178 Chapter 4 . 182 Book IV, The Pioneer Woman’s Story . 193 Chapter 1 . 195 Chapter 2 . 198 Chapter 3 . 200 Chapter 4 . 207 Respond to the Selection, Books III – IV . 210 Book V, Cuzak’s Boys . 215 Chapter 1 . 217 Chapter 2 . 232 Chapter 3 . 240 Respond to the Selection, Book V . 243 Plot Analysis of My Ántonia. 246 Related Readings. 250 Introduction to the 1926 Edition by Willa Cather . 250 Letter to Frances Samlund by Anna Pavelka . 252 from History of the State of Nebraska by William G. Cutter and A. T. Andreas . 255 “The Fir Tree” by Hans Christian Andersen . 262 “Riding into California” by Shirley Geok-lin Lim . 271 “Mint Snowball” by Naomi Shihab Nye . 273 “The Prairie Grass Dividing” by Walt Whitman . 276 Creative Writing Activities . 278 Critical Writing Activities . 281 Projects . 284 Glossary . 287 Handbook of Literary Terms . 297 Acknowledgments. 301 iv MY ÁNTONIA Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page v THE LIFE AND WORKS OF Willa Sibert Cather The oldest of seven children, Willa Cather was born in 1873 in western Virginia. When she was ten years old, her family moved to rural Nebraska to live in Willa’s grandpar- ents’ house. The landscape she encountered there, with its miles of waving red grasses, its few isolated trees, its open- ness to brutal weather, and its determined, lonely settlers, permeated Cather’s imagination and became the source of and setting for many of her most significant literary works, including My Ántonia. In fact, many events from Cather’s life following the move Willa Sibert Cather to Nebraska show up in the life of Jim Burden, the narrator of My Ántonia. Like Jim, Cather spent hours listening to immigrant neighbors tell stories of the old country and of their earliest years in Nebraska. Cather would never forget these stories, and many of them would later appear in her fiction. Less than two years after arriving in Nebraska, the Cathers left the farm and moved into Red Cloud, a small prairie town where Willa attended school for the first time. Red Cloud appears in Cather’s fiction under a number of names, includ- ing My Ántonia’s town of Black Hawk. It was in Red Cloud that Willa met Annie Sadilek, a Bohemian girl who worked for the neighboring Miner family. The character of Ántonia is based on Annie, whose difficult life and vibrant personal- ity fascinated Cather. A letter from the real Annie is included in the back of this book as a related reading. The adolescent Cather and the townspeople of Red Cloud had mixed feelings about each other. Cather was gifted at seeing beneath the surface of the people around her and uncovering their unique stories. Her eccentricities, however, did not mesh well with a relatively conformist town. A tomboy, Cather often dressed in boys’ clothing and even signed her name as William or Willie Cather for most of her teenage years. She was out of place in Red Cloud and often found companionship among the older residents and in her beloved books. After graduation from high school, Cather, like Jim, attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. While she was at the university, a professor submitted one of her essays to the Lincoln newspaper for publication, kindling Cather’s desire to write and publish. She began reviewing books, THE LIFE AND WORKS OF WILLA SIBERT CATHER v Antonia FM 12/12/01 2:51 PM Page vi plays, and music for the Lincoln newspaper before she fin- ished college. Soon after graduation, Cather’s writing aspirations drew her toward the East coast, where most of the magazines and journals of the time were published. In the first years of the new century, Cather lived in Pittsburgh and published many short stories and poems, including collections of both. She later moved to New York City to serve as editor of McClure’s, a popular and controversial magazine, known for muckrak- ing journalism that exposed scandals in industry and poli- tics. In New York, Cather soon met Edith Lewis, the woman who would be her roommate and closest companion for the rest of her life. Cather continued to write up until her death in 1947. In twelve novels and several collections of short stories, Cather explored her fascination with pioneers both literal and figu- rative. In some cases, Cather’s pioneers were sodbusters in the American Midwest. Several of her most important works, including O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and One of Ours, describe the hardships and rewards of life on the frontier. The values Cather associates with the Midwestern prairie are celebrated and contrasted with the values of an increasingly urban, industrialized East coast. Other books, including The Song of the Lark and Lucy Gayheart, trace the lives of artists breaking new ground in a more figurative sense. These artistic pioneers are struggling to maintain a connection to their own heritage while seek- ing artistic fulfillment. Woven throughout Cather’s body of work are themes of love and friendship, longing for connection to home,.