ENGC70H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Willa Cather, Unreliable Narrator, Gift Economy
Document Summary
Weekly micro-composition: there is gender confusion associated with jim and antonia that feeds both desire and fear. (author willa cather was attached to her old neighbour annie sadilek pavelka; female desire perhaps?) As mentioned before, the book is filled with paradox and contradiction. For example, jim believes himself as a new man in a new world, even though he isn"t, and the. New" world is filled with swedes and polish and russians. Jim burden is not actually burdened; he has the safety net of his grandmother to go back to, and he is not haunted by the fact he is an orphan. Russia seemed more remote than any country (pg. 19); it seems far away to jim, but there are many russians in nebraska. The russians pavel and peter are remarkably burdened, unlike jim. Pavel and peter speak a slavic language (possibly modern ukrainian), which is similar to the bohemian (polish) language the shimerdas speak.
