Sunday, April 17, 2011

In Willa Cather's My Antonia, how is Jim's view of the hired girls and the towns-girls different from the townspeople's view?Give at least two...

In Willa Cather's novel My Antonia,
the story is told from Jim Burden's point of view.


While
Jim may be considered nostalgic (and is even told by Francis that he is a romantic), he
holds a special place in his heart for the "hired"
girls.


Jim has known these girls since he arrived at his
grandparents' homestead many years before, and he has grown up with them. While living
on the Nebraska frontier was difficult for his family, they survived in some comfort. On
the other hand, Antonia and her family, who also arrived at the same time, suffered
great agony, with heartaches that might have destroyed weaker
sorts.


There is a liveliness about the hired girls that Jim
loves. He never has a wish to take advantage or be unkind, but finds the girls lovers of
life in general. They embrace their existence with a passion that he finds missing in
the towns-girls, perhaps because they have not had to deal with the
hardships that make the "foreign" girls so appreciative of being
alive.


He does not find this hunger in the towns-girls:
what they have is what is expected. There is no struggle: it is bestowed upon them.
Frances Harding, for instance, is as smart as any man. She is well-respected within the
community and works hard with her father's business interests, but is respectable in her
manner and found acceptable being "town-born," and a member of polite
society.


The towns-people are very select in their
perceptions of the girls who are foreign-born: they see them as wild and inappropriate.
They get bad reputations—perhaps because of their wild enthusiasm—even though they are
still allowed to work tirelessly for the "upright" members of the Black Hawk
community.


Specifically, Jim
says:



If I
told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman, and much respected
in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it matter? All foreigners were ignorant
people who couldn't speak
English.



Likewise, there were
country folk and townspeople who felt they could take advantage of the "country" girls.
Ole Benson followed Antonia around all the time, even though his crazy wife would come
after Antonia with a knife. Nothing happened between them, but it was "unseemly" that
Antonia and Ole (a married man) would spend time together. One of the young men from
town decided, though he was to marry in two days, to walk Antonia home from a dance.
Trying to kiss her, she smacked him in the face. Had she been a towns-girl, he would
never have thought to try it.


On the other hand, the
daughters of Black Hawk merchants were never hired out to do work.  They were
"refined."


readability="7">

...no matter in what straights the Pennsylvanian
or Virginian found himself, he would not let his daughters go out into
service.



Jim sees the country
girls and the towns-girls differently, mostly because of their passion (or lack thereof)
for life. The townspeople have lived so long a safe and complacent existence that they
can no longer appreciate the simple joy of being alive. Jim can see this difference
between the "towners" and the "country" folk.

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