by Alexandra Dorian

Created on: August 12, 2008

My ntonia is Willa Cather's sweeping look at the birth of the American frontier, forged by the hands of steadfast pioneers and immigrants. The environment is not only a setting, but a key influence in the story of the main characters.

Cather's story tells the tale of a Bohemian immigrant girl, ntonia, through the eyes of her neighbor, Jim. The two grow together in the backdrop of a burgeoning landscape. Jim first lives on his grandparent's farm, so is continuously in touch with his environment. He describes days in the field, harsh winter snows and the crops that come from their toil. There are many extensive descriptions of the farmland, particularly involving ntonia. She is described as a powerful, strong woman, taking to plows and manual labor just like a man. Although all the new frontiersmen are tied to the land, it is the immigrants that are pictured as having the closest relationship. Jim often narrates as he drives past their land on his grandparent's carriage. ntonia and often her friend Lena Lingard are seen in the fields, their muscles sweltering in the summer heat as they swing a hoe into a new field. Their clothes are tattered and soiled, obvious signs that they are tied to the land, both physically and financially.

ntonia's father is a prime example of humankind's relationship to the environment. He suffers from severe depression after leaving his home country, and is so lost that he cannot provide for his family. In a final act of desperation, he takes his life in the family barn. However, he did cling to the ideals of prosperity and freedom that his new country would bring him. He instructs his family to bury him on a certain corner of the farm, because he is sure that it is there that one day the major intersection of two roads will meet and he wants to be a part of it. This can serve as a great commentary on how immigrants longed to belong to their new surroundings and paid great sacrifices to join our society.

Jim and ntonia's adventures eventually lead to a small Nebraska town, complete with a hotel and railroad. This journey away from the farms and nature has its consequences. Here, Jim encounters drinking, gambling and other licentious affairs for the first time. The railroad is always bringing new characters to town, and eventually takes Jim off to college. ntonia, however, is left behind to work in one of the townspeople's homes. As an immigrant, Cather has positioned ntonia as a person of the land. She is out of place in the town, most noticeably because of her accent and longing for her family. She belongs in the wild, back in the modest cabin on the farm, and is eventually dismissed from her domestic work. The novel ends with ntonia having a child of her own, and returning to the very same land where she was raised.

Willa Cather was a child of the frontier herself, and wrote much of the novel from her own experiences. The environment, and all its gifts and hindrances to the new pioneers, is a clear force in her novel My ntonia. The prairie landscape contributed to both shaping and changing the fate of the main characters.

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