When Jim arrives in Nebraska, he sees “nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” Yet at the novel’s end the landscape is differentiated. It has direction and color – red grass, blue sky, dun-shaded bluffs. We are reminded of the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and of God’s parting of the heavens from the earth. To what extent is My Àntonia an American Genesis? What are its agents of creation and differentiation?

Question

This is the last question I have to answer!

Answer 1

thanks for the site but it doesnt really help much. some of them just repeat the question

Answer 2

Have you read the beginning of Genesis in the Bible? "In the beginning there was nothing....." God created from the formless, empty darkness, light, vegetation, etc. Have you looked in the dictionary for the definition of "creation?"

Have you ever been to Nebraska? W. Cather actually "compares" her first trip at the age of 9. I remember my first trip as well to Nebraska. The land was sparse, empty of civilization and we visited an uncle on the "Dismal River." It was just like the name!

Don't forget when Antonia and Jim are digging in the garden, a snake appears and they kill it. In this way, they will not lose their innocence (so to speak) like Adam and Eve who did not kill the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Actually, you can find a lot of religious symbolism in "My Antonia."

With "differentiation" note how the landscape was in the beginning and then later with direction and color.

Sra

Answer 3

i dnt know im looking for answers