ilarities, we can see that both Fitzgerald and Cather use their characters in very similar ways. The title of both novels is a case in point. From the outset it is clear that both novels are singularly concerned with their title characters and the influence they have over others. Though Gatsby and Antonia are not constant presences in their own novel, they are always hovering around the peripheries of the narrator's consciousness. 'My Antonia' is as much our narrator, Jim Burden's story as it is that of the title character, but she remains to him his inspiration, a stylised icon of his youth spent on the frontier, indeed, the very definition of it. In this sense she acts as more of a symbol than a viable character, and it is to Cather's credit that she manages to imbue her with validity and authenticity.
             Yet Antonia is not the novel's only symbol. The prairies of Nebraska, where the novel is set play an equally important role. Indeed, it is an overbearing, constant presence the novel, almost as much of a characte
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