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Characters

Ántonia "Tony" Shimerda: The bold and free-hearted young Bohemian girl with whom Jim develops a strong friendship. She is 4 years older than Jim, and embodies the spirit of the prairie. Her family come over to Black Hawk, Nebraska, from Bohemia, and not long after, her father, suffering from depression at having to leave the old country, commits suicide (Although it is very possible that he was murdered by Krajiek). She endures a hard period of farming on the prairie after her father dies. As a young woman, she later moves to town to work for the Harlings (the next door neighbours of Jim) as a cook and maid. She gains a reputation as one of the town's beautiful "hired girls", which upsets the Harlings. She leaves them to work for Wick Cutter, one of the town money-lenders with a bad reputation, later becoming engaged to a young man named Larry Donovan who flees before the marriage, leaving Ántonia pregnant with an illegitimate child. She later marries a man named 'Cuzak', and has ten children with him on the farm.

Jim Burden: Jim is the narrator of the novel. He is an orphan, and at the beginning of the novel moves to Nebraska to live with his father's parents. Here he meets the young Ántonia, who becomes a great companion. At the beginning of the second book, The Hired Girls, he moves to town with his grandparents, who encourage their neighbours, the Harling family, to take Ántonia (Tony) on as a maid. Jim befriends the other hired girls, including the beautiful Lena Lingard. A group of dance teachers comes to town, and begins a craze. Jim, four years younger than Ántonia, becomes romantically interested in her, only to realise that she still considers him a child. Lena Lingard toys somewhat with the young man's emotions, but Ántonia ultimately prevents any relationship from occurring to protect Jim's feelings. Jim eventually goes away to university, and largely forgets his past in Black Hawk. Years later he meets Lena Lingard again, now a successful dressmaker. They are involved romantically for a time, but Jim's mentor notes the detrimental impact it is having on Jim's studies, and offers him the opportunity to study at Harvard Law School in Boston. Jim ultimately returns to Black Hawk after some twenty years, and goes to find Ántonia. She is now married with ten children, and Jim finds himself affectionate toward the whole family. The closing lines of the book communicate Jim's feelings that whatever he felt that he and Ántonia had missed, "we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."