Americanness

"There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before"

This quote by Willa Cather sums up for me why My Antonia is such a relevant book, even in a day and age so far removed from the Nebraska prairie of over 100 years ago.  In the first book of My Antonia, Cather draws upon some of the basic elements of human life, that do not change even as the centuries pass.  These elements include learning to feel at home somewhere, growing up, and the importance of family and neighbors.   While life is certainly different now than the days in which immigrants lived in dugouts with no central heating in the middle of the plains of America, Americans still struggle to find their place in a vast and changing society.  Immigrants today must still work to strike a balance between becoming a part of American culture and holding onto their heritage.   Friends and neighbors still struggle to find understanding despite differences, and children still grow up and struggle with what it means to be a man or a woman, and to be an individual in America.   Cather's novel thus far focuses upon a specific time and place in history, yet the heart of the story is still the undying concepts that affect human life everywhere, making for a novel that continues to be relevant today.   One quote which struck me in reading the PBS article "About Willa Cather," was that she found that ,"the novel, for a long while, has been over-furnished,"  and thus decided to write in a style that was much less presumptuous and "refined."  The article wrote that, "It was risky, in the early part of this century, to presume to write fiction about ordinary, rough-hewn people engaged in the rigors of dry land farming in frontier Nebraska,"  yet Cather chose to do just this with My Antonia.  In this way, I feel that her novel exemplifies a certain "Americanness" that we have been discussing throughout AmCon.  Rather than catering simply to a wealthy, white, upper class, Cather's novel zoomed in on an everyday, ordinary, American life in the frontier.  While this is certainly not the life every single American led, her writing certainly attached itself to a certain element of life that could appeal to a wide section of the population who perhaps weren't familiar with fancy balls and clothing, but were familiar with hard work and feeling like an outsider.  People could identify with characters such as Mr. Shimerda, who loses joy in the American plains as he is too far removed from home, friends who understand him, and a sense of belonging.  Antonia as well could be a sympathetic character for those women who did not grow up acting like "ladies," but rather were expected to do their fair share in taking care of the household and supporting the family.   Beyond this, Cather does an excellent job of describing place.   She situates her novel with much detail, focusing upon the setting in a way that allows the reader to feel at home in the novel.  This ties back to our work with place first semester of AmCon, in which we examined how wide open spaces and a sense of place is an important part of being an American and feeling autonomous in a new land.  In these ways, Cather's novel exemplifies a certain Americanness and continues to be relevant today.