My Antonia

Question 1

AO1: Quotation on the immigrant experience and the navigation of a new land

Answer 1

“Try our fortunes in a new world”

Question 2

AO1: Quotation on idea of being conned

Answer 2

“Had paid him more than it was worth”

Question 3

AO1: Quotation on memory of freedom of the past

Answer 3

“The new country lay open before me, there were no fences in those days”

Question 4

AO1: Quotation on resourcefulness of immigrants

Answer 4

“Meat for eat skin for hat”

Question 5

AO1: Quotation on simplicity of the lives of immigrant families

Answer 5

“Our lives centred around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall”

Question 6

AO1: Quotation on nostalgia for Bohemia

Answer 6

“Papa sad for the old country”
“Old country” is repeated 14 times

Question 7

AO1: Quotation on why Mrs Shimerda wanted to move to America

Answer 7

“Much land for my boys, much husband for my girls”

Question 8

AO1: Quotation on xenophobia

Answer 8

“People who don’t like this country ought to stay at home”
Link to immigration laws

Question 9

AO1: Quotation on Mr Shimerda’s suicide

Answer 9

“Homesickness that killed Mr Shimerda”

Question 10

AO1: Quotation on Antonia’s response to Jim’s grandmothers concerns

Answer 10

“I do not care that your grandmother says it makes me like a man. I like to be like a man”

Question 11

AO1: Quotation on Black Hawk

Answer 11

“Black Hawk, the new world”

Question 12

AO1: Quotation on appearance of Lena

Answer 12

“Demure and pretty”

Question 13

AO1: Quotation on Lena’s opinion of married life

Answer 13

“I’ve seen a good deal of married life and I don’t care for it”

Question 14

AO1: Quotation on dances with the hired girls

Answer 14

“Risk a tiff with their sweethearts […] for a waltz with one of the hired girls”

Question 15

AO1: Quotation on the social situation in Black Hawk

Answer 15

“Curious social situation in Black Hawk”

Question 16

AO1: Quotation on difference between hired and town girls

Answer 16

“They we’re almost a race apart”

Question 17

AO1: Quotation on impact of hired girls on the social order

Answer 17

“Country girls were considered a menace to the social order”

Question 18

AO1: Quotation on respect in Black Hawk

Answer 18

“The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk youth”

Question 19

AO1: Quotation on how town girls lived

Answer 19

“Tried to live like mice in their own kitchens”

Question 20

AO1: Quotation on who Jim should marry

Answer 20

“Girls of your own set”

Question 21

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s lack of expectation of Lena

Answer 21

“Lena’s success puzzled me”

Question 22

AO1: Quotation on reasoning behind Lena’s refusal to marry

Answer 22

“I prefer to be foolish when I like and be accountable to nobody”
Flips angel in the house mentality and highlights difference between immigrant and traditional mentality also

Question 23

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s comment when he returns to Black Hawk

Answer 23

“Everything seemed just as it used to be”
- Burden’s have remained stagnant whereas hired girls have pushed boundaries and changed

Question 24

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s disappointment in Antonia for having a child out of wedlock

Answer 24

“Poor Antonia” & “I was bitterly disappointed in her”

Question 25

AO1: Quotation on Tiny’s success

Answer 25

“Tiny Sodderball was to lead the most adventurous life and achieve the most worldly success” in a man’s world

Question 26

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s regret with Antonia

Answer 26

“I’d have liked to have you for a sweetheart”

Question 27

AO1: Quotation on what Antonia comes to mean to Jim

Answer 27

“You really are a part of me”

Question 28

AO1: Quotation on injustice in society

Answer 28

“Things will be easy for you”

Question 29

AO1: Quotation on Antonia’s independence

Answer 29

“Mr Harling ain’t my boss outside my work”

Question 30

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s dreams

Answer 30

“Big western dreams”

Question 31

AO1: Quotation on Antonia’s vow to Jim about her children

Answer 31

“Give [her] little girl a better chance than [she] ever had”

Question 32

AO1: Quotation on Jim’s admiration of Antonia

Answer 32

“She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of the early races” Pioneer women as a microcosm for the making of America

Question 33

AO1: Last line of the novel

Answer 33

“The precious incommunicable past”

Question 34

AO5: Tredell on gender

Answer 34

“Female strength compensates for male deficiency” and that Cather’s novel “shows a spectrum of possibilities for women rather than prescribing one route” Calls Cather’sNobel a “project”

Question 35

AO5: David Stouck on why Cather set novel in past

Answer 35

“Cather celebrated the innocence of the past because it had become more attractive than the present”

Question 36

AO5: Stockley on what the novel is about

Answer 36

“The novel isn’t about Antonia but what Antonia comes to mean to Jim”

Question 37

AO5: Richard Ruland on the idea of America

Answer 37

Argued that we should remember that “America was an idea long before it was a place in the eyes of Europeans”

Question 38

AO5: Sharon O Brien on Antonia

Answer 38

“Antonia is an absolute legend of what it takes to produce a country”

Question 39

AO1: Quotation on Antonia’s spirit

Answer 39

“Whatever else was gone, Antonia had not lost the fire of life”

Question 40

AO1: Analyse Et in Arcadia Ego

Answer 40

- translates as even in the most beautiful places death is still present (always undercurrent of tragedy) - Even the theme of death, Et in Arcadia ego, does not tarnish Antonia’s hopes and dreams