My antonia

« --- Informations sur l'utilisateur --- Sujet que l'utilisateur souhaitait consulter : (Id: 16315) Existe-t-il des lois injustes ? Nom : elisa gg E-mail : [email protected] Id user : 158057Vente autorisée : Non Pour visualiser son profil suivez ce lien : http://www.devoir-de- philosophie.com/compte/kiche09.html --- Informations sur le document transmis --- Titre : my antonia- intro Catégorie: Langues Envoyé par copier/coller --- Contenu du document --- Contenu du copier/coller: This excerpt is the very beginning of the novel in which we learn about different characters and the setting, but more importantly about the 2main characters Jim and Antonia.

So we will focus first on the characters and the setting, then will see the purpose of this introduction.

1) Characters and setting The introduction starts with a latin epigraph wich means "the best days are the first to flee".

Through this epigraph, we start the novel with aclear hint to somebody's childhood wich convey the idea of nostalgia and homesickness.

We understand later that it concerns 2 childhoodfriends, the narrator and Jim who meet on a train while crossing the Iowa plains.Lots of informations are given about Jim: his full name isJames Quayle Burden (l.3), he's over 40 (l.50) and he's married to a women named Genevieve Whitney (l.25).

We know that he's a legalcounsel for a Western railways company and that he lives in New-York (l.17-18).

Most importantly we learn that he grew up in the sameNebraska town as the narrator (l.4) and that he's a sympathetic (l.54), quiet and romantic (l.40) man, unlike the narrator who seems to be amale friend of Jim's.

Indeed, the narrator have an old-fashioned man's vision of woman as the narrator dislikes Jim's wife on account that sheis "a restless headstrong girl" (l.27) who clearly appears as a feminist claming for women rights.

Thinking that the narrator is a man, thereader is surprised when he discovers at line 81 that the narrator is finally a woman : "I, as a little girl".

The gender roles are almost reversedas Jim seems to have a feminine quality (sympathetic, romantic vision of life) and the narrator a man's vision of woman.

While Jim and thenarrator look back to their past, they think about Antonia, a bohemian girl that they both admired (l.58), remembering her seemed to mean "the whole adventure of [Jim's and the narrator's] childhood" (l.59).

Indeed, "to speak her name was to call up pictures ans places" (l.60), inthis way, Antonia is probably more than just a character in the book, almost an allegory of their past, just like the Great Plains are more thanjust an anonymous landscape.

Indeed, the narrator gives a beautiful description from line 10 to 16 which refers to unforgettable and keymemories as if the setting of their childhood was an indescribable part of them.

2)The purpose of the introduction At the end of the excerpt we know that the rest of the novel will be from Jim's point of view, he will be the narrator, in this way the introductionacts as a framing device (a story within a story) to the rest of the novel which allows Cather to introduce the reader to the character Jim who'swritting a memoir about a young bohemian girl, Antonia.

The introduction makes it clear, the rest of the novel will be a subjective descriptionof events and characters as it is Jim's manuscript.

Everything is told from Jim's point of view which means that the Antonia in the story ismerely his vision and construction.The description of the main characters and the setting of their childhood makes the reader to want to know more about them and about life inthe Great Plains.

Furthermore, the fact that the introduction acts like a framing device to the novel re-inforces the curiosity of the reader whowants to turn the page and start for real the novel.

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