Book i, chapter 16 my antonia willa cather

This text is an extract from the sixteenth chapter of My Antonia published in 1918 and written by Willa Cather. She was born on the 7th of December in 1873 and wrote a few novels, one of which is My Antonia. This novel takes place in Nebraska, in the United States of America, between the 1880’s and 1910’s and deals with farmers who live in the plains to make fortune. This text is the sixteenthchapter of the first book written in the first person by the narrator who is Jim Burden. The narrator tells us the story in which the Shimerda family buries Mr. Shimerda who committed suicide. This text falls into three parts which I am going to develop. First of all, we are going to talk about the ceremony, secondly the reaction about Mr. Shimerda’s death and finally the Burdens versus theShimerdas.

To begin with, after Mr. Shimerda’s death, his family decided to plan a ceremony in his honor. This ceremony is a religious one because there is a « prayer-book », people make the « sign of the cross », Mr. Burden makes « some prayer for him in English » and they talk and sing about God and Jesus. Then, Otto Fuchs, with the Jelinek’s help, has to place the lid on the box and nail it down,which means that he is one of the men who are burying Mr. Shimerda. Afterward, Mr. Burden is asked to make some prayer in English in order to make understand the neighbors, which reinforces the fact that this ceremony is religious.
Moreover, during Mr. Shimerda’s burial, we can notice that the Shimerda’s religion is more rigid than the Burden’s because Mrs. Shimerda compels her youngest daughterto touch her father while she doesn’t want to. When Mrs. Burden notices that, she decides to interfere because she thinks that she is too young to understand what this action means. In that way, Mrs. Burden shows her disappointment with this rigid religion. Then, in order to adapt herself to the American society, Mrs. Shimerda asks to Mr. Burden to make some prayer in English to make peopleunderstand.
Finally, according to Jim, there were many people who came to Mr. Shimerda’s burial which shows the solidarity between neighbors in the sadness of the loss of a beloved person. The neighbors give presents to the Shimerda’s family which illustrates the solidarity while when the Shilerdas arrived in Black Hawk; they used the weakness of this new family to make them pay more expensive thanother people. All this make me think that this is not religious but because they are foreigners. Furthermore, according to me, the neighbors’ presence is not sincere because before the death of Mr. Shimerda, they did not even care about what could happen to this family because they are foreigners to them. On the contrary, the Burden’s family is sincere because they help them and they spend a lot oftime with them.

Then, Antonia really loves her father because his death made her sad. Indeed, she says « oh, Jimmy, what you tink for my lovely papa! » and she seemed to be heart broken when she talks to Jim. But, even if, she is sad she takes care of her little sister who is scared by the body without life. Indeed, she takes Yulka in her arms to comfort her which shows that her father’s deathmade her grow up that’s why she has a protective attitude with her little sister as if she was her mother.
Jim looks at Antonia to see how she is and how she reacts to the burial. According to me, he looks at her because he wants to see her reaction and he is affected by Mr. Shimerda’s death because he said about him that a fair and nice man who could do everything for his family. That’s why heaccepted to leave his country his friends behind him just to follow his family and the choices of his wife. Besides, Mrs. Burden has a firm reaction toward Mrs. Shimerda when she tries to force Yulka to touch her father. She resists to what the little girl has to do, according to her mother, because she assumes that she is too young to understand the real meaning of what she supposed to do. Mr....