My Antonia2

The Inability to Provide for His Family, and Why it Drove Mr. Shimerda to Suicide

My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is a novel about Jim Burden and his relationship and experiences growing up with Antonia Shimerda in Nebraska. Throughout the book Jim reflects on his memories of Nebraska and the Shimerda family, often times in a sad and depressing tone. One of the main ways Cather is able to provoke these sad emotions within the reader is through the suicide of Antonia's father, Mr. Shimerda. His death was unexpected by everyone and it is thought that homesickness is what drove him to take his own life. Homesickness was surely felt by Mr. Shimerda, as it was by many, but it was the failure to adequately find a way to provide for his family that sent Mr. Shimerda into a depressing downward spiral that left him no foreseeable alternative but to take his own life.

The first descriptions of Mr. Shimerda are that of a successful businessman that had always provided well for his family.

I noticed how white and well-shaped his own hands were. They looked calm, somehow, and skilled. His eyes were melancholy, and were set back deep under his brow. His face was ruggedly formed, but it looked like ashes - like something from which

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This came from the burden of providing for his family by way of very unfamiliar and difficult means. This leaves him with no one for advise and help but the Burtons. And that spring, neighbors helped build a new home for the family and helped get the farm working. Also, the burden of having no one to lean on for support, such as for advice and to borrow equipment, leaves Mr. "The news of what had happened over there had somehow got abroad through the snow-blocked country" (88). Shimerda came to the realization that no one was really going to help them. Perhaps he believed that if he sacrificed his own life, maybe then people would show compassion and come to the needed assistance of his family. Regardless, if it were not for his inability to provide an adequate life for his family in the new country, Mr. His hands show that he rarely performed hard manual labor, but that he did work hard with his hands to weave. all the warmth and light had dried out. His family has to bear the cold winter in a dugout with no food.

Approximate Word count = 1314
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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