In January, two days after Jim’s birthday, Mr. Shimerda is saddened, reminded of his cozy village in Bohemia. When the snow melts, Jim’s grandparents invite the Shimerdas to their home, but the visit goes poorly. They do their best to help, but when Christmas snow traps them in their homes, the Shimerdas are trapped without hearty food or gifts. When winter arrives, Jim’s grandparents discover that the Shimerdas do not have enough clothing or food to survive the winter. He is unable to provide properly for his family. Shimerda, having lost his one outside connection to his native culture, sinks into loneliness and depression. But when Pavel dies suddenly, Peter leaves to find a job in railway construction. His one solace is his friendship with Pavel and Peter, Russian farmers whose language is similar to the Shimerdas’. Shimerda, frail and homesick, finds the adjustment to farm life especially difficult. Ántonia learns English eagerly under Jim’s tutelage, although her parents are more hesitant to adapt to American life. The Burdens soon befriend the Shimerda family, and Jim and Ántonia bond over their love of the land. He quickly settles into his new life with Jake Marpole and Otto Fuchs, the farm hands, and his loving grandparents. Ten-year-old Jim feels immediately at home on the prairie. On the same train is 13-year-old Ántonia Shimerda, an immigrant from Bohemia, whose family is buying the land next to the Burdens. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia’s life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that lens.In the late 1880s, recently orphaned Jim Burden leaves his home in Virginia to live with his grandparents in rural Nebraska. The book’s narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died.
My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. Download cover art Download CD case insert My Ántonia
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