Freedom, Opportunity, and the Vision of America in My Antonia by Willa Cather Caitlin Russell 11th Grade

In Cather’s Nebraskan novel My Antonia, written in 1918, she touches on the ideals of freedom and opportunity that pervade American literature. In My Antonia some characters are given freedom and opportunity, fulfilling the mythical ‘American dream’ but many aren’t, they struggle and fail to thrive on the prairie. By creating these two different narratives Cather is giving a more realistic account of the American experience, demystifying the American dream. In order to portray the hardships and inequalities faced by immigrants in America Cather has explored barriers to this freedom such as race and class as well as the opportunities awarded to immigrants both domestic and European in the form of land and community that eventually lead many Nebraskan farmers to thrive.

In James E Miller’s critical interpretation My Antonia and the American dream he describes My Antonia as a ‘commentary on the American experience’ that ‘does not portray, in any meaningful sense, the fulfillment of the American dream’. The ideals of freedom and opportunity, heavily associated with the ‘American dream’ are often critiqued by Cather in My Antonia by portraying dissatisfaction and disillusionment in her characters. Miller’s interpretation argues that...