My AntoniaLiterary AnalysisEssay
Length: 2 to 3 pages (Intro, Body Paragraphs, Conclusion)
Materials:My Antonia,theme worksheet
Assignment: Choose One:
Topics on back of sheet
Criteria:
Submitted to TurnItIn.com by due date
Typed and Double Spaced (12 font)
Integrate quotations from text smoothly:
- 1-2 longer citations (10+ words in a row)
- 4-7 smaller citations (<5 words each)
1/3 or ¼ concrete details and 2/3 or ¾ commentary
Organize your essay around one unified thesis
- Choose 3 passages, 3 characters, 3 events, etc. to support thesis
Analysis not Summary
- Develop a thesis = prove in essay
- One unifying idea runs throughout essay
- Analyze, dig deeper? What’s Cather saying?
- Analyze novel’s style. Examine the word choice and structure.
MLA style (see below)
My Antonia Essay Topics
(1) In the Introduction it says, he [Jim] "wrote across the face of the portfolio "Antonia'. He frowned at this moment, then prefixed another word, making it 'My Antonia.'"
Examine the relationship of Jim and Antonia throughout the book. Define the relationship and its evolution over the years.
(2) "Optima dies...prima fugit."
Apply this theme of the book to the novel, its characters, the setting, etc.
(3) In Cather's novelO Pioneers, she says "The history of every country begins in the heart
of a man or woman." (xvii)
Apply this concept to theMy Antonia.
(4) "It was the country that was the hero or heroine. It was bigger, greater than those who peopled and struggled with it" (xvi).
Cather writes with a wistful nostalgia for the frontier; explore Cather's emphasis on the land and
examine the relationship of the characters to the land.
(5) "More than any other person we remembered, this girl [Antonia] seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood" (xxiv).
Why does Antonia seem to be so strongly linked to everyone's childhood?
(6) Cather once said, "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before." (xxiv)
What human story doesMy Antoniaconvey?
(7) Cather said of Jewett, her stories "melt into the land and the life of the land until they are not stories at all, but life itself." (xxix)
What does Cather's story reveal about life? What theme or themes do the characters and plot
reveal about life?
(8) She [Cather] went backward in time; finding in the past all the values she failed to discover in the present. "Some memories are reality and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
Examine the role of the past in different characters in the novel and the role the past plays in people’s
lives.