Where the entrance to the My Antonia wing of the Willa Cather Foundation should be, a passenger car from the era of steam locomotives stretches along the opening, blocking the entire entrance. A door fixed into the side provides entry to a three foot deep replica train interior, containing two plaques, and another door which leads to the wing.

The purpose of this “lobby” is to give visitors a sense of the frame style put to use in My Antonia, executed by giving the exhibit the same introduction as is given in the story; that is, a passenger car which relates minutely to the story beyond the car, but sets the scene for what lies ahead.

This wing of the Willa Cather Foundation is dedicated to her novel “My Antonia,” a story that portrays the author’s deep connection to her hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska. Many literary experts suggest that the book’s main character, Jim, is directly modeled after Willa and her life on the Nebraska prairie (Britton, 2008). Similar to Jim, she was born in Virginia, and moved to her grandparents home on the Nebraska plains (albeit, she was not orphaned as Jim was, her parents made the move with her) at a young age, alongside a dense immigrant population (MFAH Book Club, 2010). Her writing gains a vividness achieved by her time on the plains, for every scene she describes feels real to the point that it would be impossible to paint such a picture without having experienced the scene herself.

As you enter beyond the adjacent door, please walk clockwise around the room. The exhibits are situated in an attempt to give our visitors a taste of the prevalent theme of change present in My Antonia, exempting the center wall which hosts a number of interactive devices with no significant arrangement. Make notice of the log cabin décor which represent our attempts to reproduce the home of young Jim Burden. Please enjoy yourself!

To give a bit of clarification on why you’re currently standing in a train car, the introduction to My Antonia is very informative. The introduction sets the reader in a passenger car rolling through Iowa, with two companions swapping stories of life in the Midwest. Their conversations winds up on the subject of a girl both parties knew long ago, which sets the stage for the body of the novel to begin.

In an attempt to replicate this “frame” effect, the Willa Cather foundation has provided a period train car installation for our wing. Utilized as an entrance, it gives the same introduction to our version of My Antonia as is given in the actual novel. Used as a literary device, framing is an easy way to hint at background information, divulge spoilers to the plot which bias your opinion of the story, and provide the reader with the knowledge that the novel may be romanticized by the “author,” meaning the transpiring events could be different than they are described in the story.

Hopefully the entrance to our room does the same. Enjoy your stay.

• Upon entering the room, walk to the left wall. Here, Jim’s life is displayed through four two foot wide posters accompanied by plaques which chronologically describe Jim’s life. Diction is an important factor in defining My Antonia, so accompanying each poster is a button, which when pushed plays a recording of a passage from each period of Jim’s life. Change was a major theme in the novel, especially in the context of each character, so it is very important to see the posters in order so as to experience the change in Jim through passing years!

Jim

Follow the arrow to the start of Jim’s life.

Jim Burden was a ten year old boy who, following the death of his parents, moved from Virginia to Nebraska under the care of his late father’s farmhand, Jake Marpole, to live with his grandparents. He befriended a Bohemian girl by the name of Antonia who was four years his senior. She arrived with her family in Black Hawk (the town nearest to the Burden’s farm) the same day Jim did.

Throughout the summer and fall, Jim shared a number of exciting adventures with Antonia and her baby sister Yulka in which Jim and Antonia formed a tight bond.

Alongside his grandparents, Otto Fuchs, a rough Austrian farmhand under the employ of Grandpa Burden, and Jake play role-models to Jim. Otto’s stories of the Wild West captivate both Jim and Jake.

Two Russian men, Peter and Pavel, also leave Jim with a deep impression, despite their ability to speak English. They were friendly men, and could communicate well with the Shimerdas. However, Pavel was fighting a terminal illness, and upon his death bed, he shared a terrifying story in which the Russians threw a husband and bride to a pack of wolves in order to maintain their survival.

The coming of Nebraska’s brutal winter seemed to dampen the relationship between Jim and Antonia, cooping Jim up inside his grandfather’s house with the only adventures being an occasional sleigh ride with Antonia, the death and burial of Mr. Shimerdas, and the joyful Christmas shared within the Burden household.

“We burrowed down in the straw and curled up close together, watching the angry red die out of the west and the stars begin to shine in the clear, windy sky… We lay still and did not talk. Up there the stars grew magnificently bright. Though we had come from such different parts of the world, in both of us there was some dusky superstition that those shining groups have their influence upon what is and what is not to be (Cather 46).”

After four years on the farm, the Burdens move into Black Hawk, while Otto and Jake decide the time has come for them to part ways with the Burdens and venture West. In the city, Jim begins school in earnest and learns to be social with other boys and girls his age.

As time passes, Jim learns more and more about Black Hawk’s strict social ladder, in which the hired folk (such as Antonia) are to remain separate from the city people. However, Jim finds the hired women to be much less dull than those of the city, especially a dressmaker by the name of Lena Lingard.

The freedom of the hired girls begins to make Jim restless, which drives him to a saloon. This brings scandal to the Black Hawk community, but Jim can’t seem to beat off the feeling that he’s cooped up. To cope, he begins attending dances in town after his grandparents have gone to bed, where he meets up with Antonia. After walking her back to the detestable Cutter’s home, Jim attempts to steal a kiss from Antonia, but is denied. Rather than feeling dejected, however, Jim is satisfied by her modesty.

The dancing stops abruptly when Jim finds his grandmother crying because of his deceitfulness, and in atonement, he begins a rigorous study schedule in preparation for college. Jim makes a speech for his high school’s commencement which he dedicates to Antonia’s late father, which results in Antonia crying in bliss.

In favor to Antonia, Jim house-sits in the Cutter residence, where he is awoken one night to find Mr. Cutter enraged that Jim is in Antonia’s place. His plan had been to slip in and rape Antonia, but Jim has foiled this by sleeping in her stead, narrowly escaping Mr. Cutter’s wrath.

“Her warm, sweet face, her kind arms, and the true heart in her; she was, oh, she was still my Antonia! I looked with contempt at the dark, silent little houses about me as I walked home, and thought of the stupid young men who were asleep in some of them. I knew where the real women were, though I was only a boy; and I would not be afraid of them, either (Cather 152)! “

Now attending college, Jim has come under the wing of an up-and-coming scholar by the name of Gaston Cleric. Making board with an ancient husband and wife on the outskirts of Lincoln, Jim becomes a diligent young man, working hard to get ahead in his academics.

Sophmore year at the university brings Jim an unexpected visitor, Lena Lingard, who now makes dresses in Lincoln. She brings with her news of Antonia, who is engaged to a man named Larry Donovan. Lena also brings Jim company in the form of a date to the theatre. For the remainder of his time at the university, Jim and Lena see each other consistently, until Cleric is offered a position at Harvard, and makes requests for Jim to follow him to Massachusetts. At the finish of the semester, Jim visits home in Black Hawk for a few weeks before ultimately leaving for Harvard, with a stop in Virginia to visit old relatives.

Two years at Harvard pass, after which Jim returns home for the summer before he must return East for law school. Curiosity over Antonia is stirred up, and Jim makes the decision to visit the widow who inhabits his old farm house in the country, where he has been told he will learn of her plight with Larry Donovan. His trip proves fruitful, for Widow Steaphens shares with him the story of Antonia’s mysterious unwedded reappearance in Black Hawk, and the unexpected birth of her child.

After sleeping in his childhood bedroom, Jim walks to the Shimerda’s, where he reunites with Antonia. They share a nostalgic walk through the Nebraska landscape of their childhood, describing to each other their plans for the future. Their stroll ends with Jim promising to see her again after law school, and Antonia promising to never forget him.

“As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass (Cather 203).”

With the largest gap yet, Jim is now in his forties, having been away from Black Hawk for twenty years. His return home is owed to the convenience of the stop as he makes his way back to New York from business in the West, coupled with his desire (which was prodded by Lena and Tiny) to drop in on Antonia and her husband Cuzak.

Upon his arrival at the Cuzak farm, Jim goes without recognition by Antonia for a moment, until she is flooded by memories of times gone by and calls for her family to meet him. Jim is given a tour of Antonia’s home, which is infinitely better than the Shimerda farm of the past. The hours give way to the reminiscing of childhood friends, but eventually Jim makes bed in the hay loft with Antonia’s children.

The following day, the gruesome murder of Mrs. Cutter at the hands of her husband, and his subsequent suicide is revealed. Jim then talks at length with Cuzak. After one final day with Antonia, Jim makes his leave of the family with everybody wishing him well as he departs to see Black Hawk one final time.

He finds the city unfamiliar, and is hard pressed to see things he recognizes. Eventually, the outskirts of town give Jim the nostalgia he desires, and his detection of a trace of the road from his youth which leads to the countryside brings him to sit peacefully and watch the sun set over the familiar landscape.

“I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man’s experience is. For Antonia and for me, this had been the road of Destiny; had taken us to those early accidents of fortune which predetermined for us all that we can ever be. Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the previous, the incommunicable past (Cather 229).”

• Coming to the end of the left wall, we reach the upper left corner of the My Antonia wing, where we have on display another exhibit.

In the upper left corner of our exhibit, we have a one-of-a-kind jukebox with dimensions of 2*2*6, complimented by an engraving which quotes Cather, “[A book] must leave in the mind of the sensitive reader an intangible residuum of pleasure; a cadence, a quality of voice that is exclusively the writer's own, individual, unique. A quality that one can remember without the volume at hand, can experience …as one can experience in memory a melody,” (Cather, 1925). In My Antonia, Cather seems to pick every word in such a way that the novel flows with a musical quality. Her self proclaimed love of music (Cather, 1925) helped her to achieve a writing style in My Antonia that leaves the reader with a “residuum of pleasure,” so we have exhibited a jukebox which plays an audio recording of the book. The jukebox hints at the musical quality of the text, while the story itself carries a harmony to satisfy visitors.

Now we have reached the central wall, where the fun lies! Each station is interactive, so feel free to touch the exhibits. However, please maintain your clockwise path, for the wall on the right starts fresh from the beginning, detailing Antonia’s growth through the progression of the book.

Create your own sunset

Low or high?set

On wall

On ceiling

Where?

Everyone who has read My Antonia remembers the enlightening sunset described on page 163, where the sun encompasses a plough while it sets. Visitors can now learn the science behind those majestic sunsets and create their own. On the left side of the center wall, there is a computer which allows guests to determine the time, cloud coverage, season, and humidity that they want to have their sunset occur at. Then, their very own sunset will be projected onto the ceiling for the other visitors to admire as they walk throughout the exhibit.

July 17, 1905

The Nebraskan prairie is the primary setting for My Antonia. It serves as a symbol for freedom throughout the book. Willa focuses the majority of her writing in the first book on the plains and the important role they play in Jim’s life.

In the novel when Jim talks about the landscape, the readers can tell that the way he describes it display his current emotions.

“Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie (Cather 163).”

Partly Cloudy

Summer

High Humidity

Just Dance, Mrs. Vanni’s edition

In the middle of the center wall, located between the sunset simulator and the meet the characters interactive device, there will be a dance simulator taking up four by three feet of space, where visitors can learn the dance moves taught by Mrs. Vanni on Saturday nights in Black Hawk (Cather 131)! The game’s controls resemble that of the popular “Dance Dance Revolution,” franchise. Players stare intently at the top screen to watch an animated replica of Antonia dance, and then attempt to replicate her moves, viewing their efforts on the bottom screen.

Because of the freedom lent to Antonia through Mrs. Vanni’s dance pavilion, along with the various other dance halls that sprung up in Black Hawk, we felt it would be a shame to let her moves go to waste. Since dance halls were the center of attention in a large portion of the book, it was decided the dance machine should be an attraction!

My Antonia introduces a myriad of characters throughout the story which come and go at the oddest of times. In an attempt to organize and keep track of the long list of important people in the novel, the final exhibit along the central back wall is the “Meet the Characters,” 30” touch-screen.

The home page displays three family trees, accompanied by two other categories. Each individual is capable of being brought onto the screen to introduce (or refresh your memory, if you’ve already read the book,) the corresponding character by simply poking the desired name.

Pink lines on the family-tree represent marriages, red lines symbolize deaths (and in one case, termination of engagement), blue lines signify important relationships, and white lines entail offspring (or siblings).

Initial Narrator

Josiah Burden (Grandpa)

• Josiah Burden was the father of Jim’s late father. A religious man, Grandfather Burden spoke rarely, but always wisely.

Emmaline Burden (Grandma)

• A compassionate woman, Jim’s grandmother enjoyed taking care of her home properly. Despite her annoyance at Mrs. Shimerda’s rudeness, she helped the Bohemian’s multiple times.

Jim’s Parents

• Within the first paragraph, Jim’s parents are dead. The only role they play in the story is their loss of guardianship over their ten year old boy due to their deaths.

James Quayle Burden (Jim)

• The focal point of the story, Jim is introduced to us late in his life with the introduction, but the body of the story begins with him in his childhood. Supposedly the novel was written by Jim and given to the narrator as a description of his childhood neighbor and close friend, Antonia. We are exposed to the growth and maturation of Jim throughout the story, as he turns from farm boy, to well educated lawyer.

Gaston Cleric

• A “brilliant and inspiring” (Cather 169) scholar who takes Jim under his wing almost immediately upon his entry to college, the instructorship at Harvard offered to Cleric allows Jim to attend the prestigious university. The death of Gaston left a deep mark on Jim.

Otto Fuchs

• A rough Austrian employed by Grandfather Burden, Otto has experienced much of the world, and relates his travels in entertaining stories. His cowboy attributes get the best of him by the end of book one, dragging him back West for some adventure.

Jake Marpole

• The only reminder of Jim’s life before Nebraska, Jake accompanied the young Jim to find work with Grandfather Burden after his previous employer (the late Mr. Burden) passed away. Jake plays the role of an older brother to Jim, but follows Otto West by the end of book one.

???

• Jim’s wife, who has that title because of the position it granted Jim, and the freedom she retained as his beau. According to the initial narrator, a rather miserable lady.

Peter Krajiek

• A nasty Bohemian who sold the Shimerdas their first home for far more than it was worth.

Mr. Shimerda

• Mr. Shimerda moved to America with a heavy heart. His homeland of Bohemia was very dear to him. Because of his wife’s relentless begging, he moved the family to the “promise land,” and gave up happiness. This is expressed by his reluctance to play the violin, which reminded him of the glory days in Bohemia.

Mrs. Shimerda

• A manipulative woman, Mrs. Shimerda forced the family to come to America in hopes her favorite son Ambrosch would find success. Her rudeness and lack of humility find her few true friends.

Ambrosch

• The eldest of the Shimerda children, Ambrosch was expected to go far. His brutish nature occasionally gave way to a soft side, but he found himself on Jim’s bad side, and under the fist of Jake on one occasion.

Antonia

• Antonia is introduced as a young immigrant lass, on her way to make a new home in the same place Jim finds himself making home. Her place in Jim’s mind is rivaled by nobody, and her adventures with him are the main focus of the book.

Yulka

• As the baby girl of the Shimerda clan, Yulka tags along with Jim and Antonia, and lives in the Cuzak household in the final years of the novel.

Marek

• The youngest Shimerda boy, Marek is full of energy, most likely mentally deficient, and likes to surprise people with his webbed hands.

Larry Donovan

• Antonia’s groom to be, Larry ditches her before the wedding in search of a fortune in Mexico, leaving her carrying his seed.

Anton Cuzak

• The man who Antonia ends up with, Cuzak shares a very similar up bringing with Antonia. For his brief role in the book, Anton seems a kind man, and gives Antonia many children.

Anton Jelinek

• The Burden’s neighbor in the country, he plays a short role in book one at the time of Mr. Shimerda’s death, and goes on to run a saloon in Black Hawk. Jelinek is uncle to Cuzak.

Martha

• Martha is the child of Donovan and Antonia, and by the end of the book she has a baby of her own.

Assorted children

• The large family of Anton’s loins is actually large. Like. 10 of em.

Mr. Harling

• The patriarch of the Harling household, which happens to neighbor the Burden home. The Harlings are a country family, and thusly interact well with the Burdens. For the extra help, Mr. Harling hires Antonia, but disapproves of her dancing, and ultimately kicks her out.

Mrs. Harling

• A wonderfully charming woman, Mrs. Harling enjoys Antonia and Jim’s company, and hosts many games for her children and the former two to enjoy.

Frances

• The eldest Harling child, Frances has a cool, calculating head. Her business skills go unrivaled, and even Jim’s Grandfather praises her ability.

Charley

• Charley’s mind is filled with militaristic aspirations, and this lands him in a successful position at the Naval Academy of Annapolis.

Julia

• Julia Harling is musically inclined, and the same age as Jim. She plays very little role in the story.

Sally

• The Harling baby is fiery tomboy, who can apparently beat Jim in an arm-wrestling match.

Lena Lingard

• Lena plays an important role in Jim’s life. In Black Hawk, the Norwegian’s relationship is not a serious one. However, in the way Jim can’t think romantically of Antonia, the opposite seems to be true for Lena. During Jim’s college years, Lena becomes a more developed character who shares a serious relationship with Jim until his departure for Harvard.

Tiny Soderball

• Starting out alongside Lena and Antonia as one of Black Hawk’s hired girls, Tiny makes a fortune in Alaska thanks to gold. Near the end of the story, Tiny lives in San Francisco, near Lena. Her negative opinion of Cuzak is expressed to Jim before he sees Antonia for the last time.

Peter and Pavel

• The two Russian brothers living near the Shimerda’s, Peter and Pavel speak no English, leaving Antonia to translate for Jim whenever they visit the pair. Pavel is in poor health, and they are in debt to the town lending shark, Wick Cutter. In their final scene, the reason for their emigration is revealed. Pavel dies in front of Jim and Antonia, and Peter boards a train after selling everything he owned, never to be seen again.

Widow Steavens

The Widow Steavens owned the house between the Burden’s country farm and Black Hawk until the end of book one, when she bought the Burden’s place. Steavens reveals to Jim Antonia’s story before he visits her in the last chapters of the novel.

Wick Cutter

• The notorious moneylender, Mr. Cutter employs and houses Antonia after she is ejected from the Harling residence. Jim foils his plot to have his way with Antonia, and in the end, it is revealed he murdered his wife and then took his own life.

Mrs. Cutter

• The unfortunate wife of Wick, Mrs. Cutter argues with her husband constantly, until he shuts her up for good.

Samson d’Arnault

• The blind black pianist who breaks up the monotony of Jim’s first winter in Black Hawk, the description given by Cather of Samson is that of a stereotypical black man of the era. The book’s intended audience should be kept in mind while reading d’Arnault’s chapter.

Mrs. Vanni

• The origin of Black Hawk’s dance craze, the Italian dance instructor hosts the pavilion which lures Antonia into her “rebellious” lifestyle.

Mr. Vanni

• The other Vanni, Mr. Vanni provides the musical ambiance for the dancing tent with his angelic harp.

Initial Narrator

• All we know about the narrator is that she was a business partner of the elder Jim introduced at the beginning of the story. She’s on a train in Iowa, dislikes Jim’s wife, and through some connection, knows Antonia.

After having your fill of interactive exhibits, your walk should continue down the right wall of the room. Antonia’s life will be displayed by four posters and plaques, along with audio exerts to mimic her change in diction as she begins to master English. Again, the displays are organized chronologically to depict the theme of change which shows up repeatedly in My Antonia.

When you have come to the end of Antonia’s display, five exhibits remain unviewed.

Exhibit Location - Word painting: three feet in front of the entrance

- Road sculpture: three feet continuing past word painting

- Black Hawk Model: dead center of the room

- Sensory Station: centered on the exterior wall of the train car

- Distance Walked: displayed next to the exit door

My Antonia contains within its binding a wonderful example of what an author can do with words. Willa Cather shows her mastery of the English language by painting landscapes and detailing the inner workings of the town of Black Hawk’s social ladder by using words alone. In the novel, her first hand experience in the prairie of Nebraska is shared with the reader in the beautiful settings she describes through Jim’s eyes.

Just as Cather, we have put on display a painting comprised of words alone, three feet away from the entrance to the room. This towering masterpiece renders adjectives that relate to the different elements of the picture in a pattern that replicates the scene Jim describes on page 163 of My Antonia. In this scene, a lone plough abandoned in a field is superimposed upon the setting sun.

However, the plough is not comprised solely of words which might be used to describe a plough, but also words to describe civilization. The same goes for the sun, the image is not limited to solar descriptors alone, but vocabulary to describe nature in general as well. The artist chose to impose these words because of the way Willa used the scene as a symbol for the manner society exists on top of nature, or similarly, an image that cannot exist without its beautiful background.

It’s no secret Willa has a knack for giving her readers a crisp mental image of the scenes she elaborates upon, the perplexity lies in how she manages to do so. Located three feet behind the easel holding the word picture, an animate statue composed of road imitates a description used twice in My Antonia, “that road which used to run like a wild thing across the open prairie,” (Cather 228). The statue lurches about in resemblance to an enraged beast (or rather, a “wild thing”). The significance behind this piece is the way it symbolizes Cather’s heavy usage of metaphors, similes, and personification to build clear images of settings and characters in the novel.

Black Hawk comes to life

In the center of the room there will be a four’ by four’ model of Black Hawk, so that visitors may catch a glimpse of both what the town looked like, and where the many characters lived and interacted with one another. This model will contain numbered stickers on buildings and other areas that will correlate to matching descriptions on the edges of the table it rests on.

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Jim’s houseThe Harling’s home where Antonia works and lives for a while.

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Another tool in Cather’s arsenal used for sharpening the images in My Antonia was her ability to appeal to the reader’s five senses. Jim’s adventures are related not only through transpiring events, but also the textures and weight of what he’s handling, the odor of his surroundings, the tastes of his meals, the intensity and tone picked up by his ears, and of course, the images displayed before his eyes.

In an attempt to physically translate My Antonia’s text, the sensory station exhibit centered against the train car offers tantalization for four of the five senses. The goggles play a panoramic video of the Nebraskan grassland, accompanied by a symphony of crickets, hawks, and various other critters emitted through the headphones. A modified gas mask wafts the scent of Grandma Burden’s sausage and waffles, while a patch of synthetic red grass lies ready to titillate your sense of touch.