Despite the trajectories and implications that Jim Burden was able to impose on the female characters of My Antonia, each of the “hired girls” ends up succeeding on their own, simultaneously demonstrating and challenging stereotypical roles for women in the late 19th century and ultimately cementing My Antonia as a critical work of early American feminist literature. Willa Cather, an accredited American author famous for her depictions of pioneer life, has brilliantly created a framework for the women of My Antonia by juxtaposing their lives with the critical narration expressed by Jim Burden while showcasing his eloquent writing in this köntslerroman which has stood the test of time. By analyzing aspects of Willa Cather's personal life, Jim Burden's hypercritical narration, and the results of said female characters, it becomes clear that the women depicted in My Antonia are feminist heroines rather than the defiant subordinates that Jim may have imagined them to be. A day. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay When reading the early My Antonia books, the female characters are tainted with a negative commonality in the way Jim undermines her affection for them with disparagement, seeming at first as if Cather's regard for women was indistinguishable from Jim's. Jim Burden has a very strong sense of how women should act, and every time one of these characters challenges his constrained perception, he's quick to point it out. Many points of proof can be addressed to prove these notions; for example, Jim dictates his superficial contempt for Antonia as she begins to treat him “more like an equal” by saying, “she was four years older than me, of course, and had seen more of the world; but I was a boy and she was a girl, and I was unhappy with her protectiveness” (Cather 24). He states quite blatantly that Antonia knows more than he does about the situation at hand, but because she is a girl his help is not needed. Later, when Antonia declines the offer to go to school because she chooses instead to work on the family farm, Jim calls her boastful and states that "everything about her was unpleasant to him." , […] [s]he had lost [all his fine manners]” (Cather 61, 62). Antonia is not the only character to be scrutinized in this way. When Jim later moves to Black Hawk, he views Lena, Tiny, and Antonia as "threats to the social order", noting them as unrefined and often comparing their actions to those of the boys (Cather 98). Although Jim thinks fondly of the women discussed in this essay, he still holds them to rigid, objectifying standards. Having a first-person perspective in this regard is key to showing how Antonia and her female counterparts defy the stereotypes imposed on them. Jim is simply a delegate of the society in which he has been enrolled; his words represent how America as a whole felt toward women in the late 19th century, and by illustrating how these women far exceeded Jim's initial impressions, they challenge the relevant societal involvement of women of their generation. In proving that My Antonia is an iconic work in feminist literature, it is also important to establish the difference between Cather's views and Jim's. In exploring Cather's journey, it makes sense that she holds her female characters in high regard, as most of the notable relationships in her life were with women (Koss). While several critics came to discussAs for Cather's potential as a lesbian, the only thing that really matters is that Cather respected and admired the women she kept in her life. Knowing that Cather wrote primarily from personal experience also proves her adoration and importance of female characters in her novels (Koss). However, critics often claim that Willa Cather was not a feminist at the time. It is easy to cite examples in which Cather expresses a sexist voice in her writing. Even emphasizing Cather's disregard for femininity as a young adult is a credible reason to argue that Cather is far from a feminist, but as English and humanities expert Elaine Aprthorp points out, Cather's writings Cather's are a reflection of "her later conscious evaluation of this period from the point of view of a different consciousness, itself the product of her earlier evolutions", essentially stating that Cather's implicitly negative voice is a projection of "her adult embarrassment over his youthful actions” (Apthorp 8). From this, it is easy to assume that Jim Burden's narration might simply be a reflection of Cather's early opinions and rejections of femininity, in combination with the gender-based demands she felt in as a woman of the 20th century. Evidence of Cather's regard for the women in her story is evident simply by knowing that the romantic character Antonia is drawn from a woman Cather knew personally and respected wholeheartedly as a child, Anna Sadilek; Cather said in an interview that "[Anna] was one of the truest artists [Cather] ever knew in the acuity and sensitivity of her pleasure, in her love of people and in her willingness to give of herself. "evil", later adding that Anna's strong personality was always something she always wanted to write about (Koss). Even though Cather's work may seem sexist or critical of women, Cather simply used Jim's voice as a brilliant framework to juxtapose the strength of the women in her story. The use of this device should not be misjudged, as Cather also holds women to a stereotypical standard, but as a highly elaborate means of emphasizing the roles of female characters in her story, conclusively providing an additional reason explaining why My Antonia is clearly brilliant feminist prose from the perspective of early American literature. In addition to the aspects of Cather's life that influenced the structure of the text, it is also essential to talk about the characters themselves which reinforce the importance of the play. The three main female icons from My Antonia that are referenced are Tiny Soderball, Lena Lingard and Antonia Shimerida, the "hired girls" as Jim calls them. As Erika Koss, administrator of the National Endowment of the Arts, notes, "[s]ince the most popular American novels featured upper-class ladies and gentlemen, it was a radical aesthetic decision on the part of Cather to present "hired" by lower class immigrants. girls’” (Koss). From the start, these girls are considered outsiders, working for the wages of the townspeople who let them live among them. While Jim often describes these factors as elements of weakness in regularly establishing his class differences between the girls, these factors perceived as unfavorable are ultimately the fundamentals of what brings them their success. Tiny Soderball, who previously worked at a men's boarding school. house, could be considered the most successful among the girls after making their fortune. 2015.