Are humans to be seen as victims of a “harsh and brutal world”? What is Cather
suggesting as we read of her characters’ many struggles? Which characters end up
in better situations and why? What do these characters have that allow them to
become successful in a new world?
please i need help 1 to 2 paragaph
I don't see the characters as victims of the landscape rather than part of the landscape. The land is rough but then so are most of the people that inhabit it. Willa Cather's straightforward story of Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant to Nebraska, parallels the change in the lives of the two principal characters with the transformation of the Great Plains. Antonia is fourteen when we first see her; Jim Burden ten. Both have been wrenched from their origins, Antonia from her native Bohemia, Jim from Ins parents' home in Virginia. She is an immigrant. He is an orphan. It is no surprise we encounter them first in motion on a train. They are carried through an empty land. "There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. This is the land that shapes them: that gives the strength but also drains them of youth.
