My Antonia Essay: Contrasts between the Hired Girls and the Black Hawk

Contrasts between the Hired Girls and the melanise chaffer Women in My Antonia Willa Cather draws a stark railway line between the respectable women of depressed Hawk and the hire girls in books II and III of My Antonia through Jims essential attachment to them. The hired girls are all(prenominal) immigrants who work in Black Hawk as servants to help support their families in the country. They are tireless and charming. They are simple and complicated. They are sad and joyful. They work all twenty-four hour period and dance all night. For Jim they are the more or less interesting people who remain in Black Hawk. The respectable women are boring and predictable. They all go to bed at the same time every night and foil up at the same time every morning. Their whole lives comprise of a series of daily routines. Most of the men in Black Hawk find the hired girls irresistible. They may raze flirt with all or one of them for a while, but inevitably when they are ca-ca to s ettle down, they choose a respectable woman to marry. After having an reason awakening at college and reuniting with Lena Lingard, one of the hired girls, Jim discovers that if there were no girls wish them in the world, there would be no poetry (Cather 173). At this backsheesh he realizes why he preferred the company of Tiny, Lena, and Antonia to that of even the wholesome-nigh(prenominal) well refined girl in Black Hawk. These girls embodied life, wilderness, adventure, and goodness. To Jim, they jibe all that is beautiful and romantic about life on the prairie in a way that no well-respected Black Hawk woman can. The hired girls had lived trying lives. They had grown up in the hardest times of their families. Because they worked to support the family, most had not received any ty... ...ares about Jim so much that she leave not allow him to be held down by herself or anybody else, even a dear friend like Lena Lingard. The hired girls are all-important(prenominal) chara cters in My Antonia both as a connection to the country and contrast against the respectable women in Black Hawk and as comparison figures for the most important hired girl, Antonia. Their success is ironic because of their meek beginnings, and says something about the range of poverty. Through them, the dealer is shown the value of overcoming obstacles with hard work. The vivid descriptions of them, as well as Jims attraction to them really make them objects of poetry to read about. They ultimately show a lot about Antonia in their similarities and dissimilarities to her. industrial plant Cited Cather, Willa. My Antonia. 1918. Foreword Kathleen Norris. Boston Houghton, 1995.