Optima deis…prima fugit – Virgil
My Antonia
Book 1 – The Shimeras
1. Jim and the Shimeras share a train and a wagon train on their way to Nebraska
2. Jim comes to his grandparent’s farm – description
3. Otto & Jim visit the Shimeras – a description of everyone in the family – Mr. & Mrs. Shimera, Ambrosche, Antonia, Yulka, Marek, & old farm owner – Kragiek – Bohemian – Czechoslovakia
4. Jim rides Dude to the post office, the Shimeras, & the prairie dog town
5. The Shimeras meet the Russians – Paul & Peter – description
6. Jim gives reading lessons; Mr. Shimera is ill & offers to give Jim his gun.
7. Jim kills the rattler & gets more respect from Antonia.
8. Paul becomes ill – tells his wolves story, dies; Peter loses the farm; Mr. Shimera is depressed at the loss of friends.
9. First winter snow, sleigh riding, description of winter for life.
10. Jim’s Grandma Burden visits the Shimeras who have one overcoat among them, live in a hovel, & are desperately hungry.
11. The Burdens, Jim, Jake, & Otto have a country Christmas with snow too deep to allow a town trip.
12. Mr. Shimera visits the Burdens to thank them for Christmas presents
13. Mrs. Shimera is jealous of the Burdens’ prosperity; a huge snow storm snows them all in.
14. We learn Mr. Shimera is dead – suicide
15. Otto gets the Coroner; we meet Anton Jelinek
16. Otto makes the casket, Shimera is buried in a funny place.
17. Jim visits Antonia – asks her to go to school – she cries because she must stay home to till the fields; disagreement over the broken saw & the price of the cow.
18. Jake & Ambrosche fight over the horse’s collar. Grandpa Burden hires Ambrosche & Antonia to make peace & forgives the cow debt.
19. Antonia comes to work for Mrs. Burden; Antonia misses her Dad & notes that life will be hard for her family, unlike how it would be if she could live with the Burdens.
Book II – The Hired Girls
1. The Burdens move to Black Hawk & purchase Preacher White’s house and rent the farm to the Widow Steavens. Juke & Otto are loyal to the last & disappear westward never to be heard from again.
Antonia works as a hired hand & is saved from fall labor by Mrs. Burden who gets her a job with the Harlings.
2. We meet the Harling family & learn of Francis Harling & her uncanny business acumen. Mr. Harling owns grain elevators; Mrs. Harling runs the household; Francis runs her Father’s Black Hawk businesses; Charley – 16; Julia – 14 (same age as Jim) and Sally, the tomboy – 13.
3. Mr. Harling described; Antonia comes to work; her relationship with the Harling children outlined.
4. We meet Lena Lingard who comes to town to apprentice with the dressmaker. The men love her! The wives don’t!
5. Lena helps her brother Chris with Christmas shopping & is lonely for her family.
6. Winter life at the Harlings; passing the time.
7. Blind d’Arnult, the blind Negro pianist, comes to Black Hawk to Gardener’s hotel (description of soft, amiable, Negro voice, with the note of docile subservience in it). Dance music played and Lena Lingard, Tiny, Tony (Antonia) & Mary Dusak dance.
8. Three Italians (Vannis) come from Kansas City to open a dance pavilion. Saturday nights in summer they all danced at the pavilion.
9. The country, farm girls who came to town (see last 2 chapters) are much more interesting than younger siblings for whom the older girls sacrificed their education. They have entered service (like maids) to help families clear debt on their farms. These service girls help their families become wealthy while the city people for whom they originally worked do less well. They have married like-farm boys & have become wealthy. The city boys loved these girls but to keep “respectability” had to marry boring city girls.
10. Antonia has to quit work at the Harlings because Mr. Harling won’t have her reputation staining his household.
11. Antonia goes to Wick Cutter’s house (money lender). The Cutters fight from daylight to dark over his cheating, inheritance, etc.
12. The pavilion leaves town; the Masonic Lodge runs the dances; Jim is told to stay away from the saloon, but sneaks out of the house on Fridays for the Fireman’s dance.
13. Grandma confronts Jim about sneaking out of the house to the dances & he promises not to do so again. It is not that Jim has done anything wrong, yet people talk & he has deceived his grandparents.
p.171 “disapprobation hurt me”
Jim is bored, works hard on Latin & other college entrance requirements and hopes to leave for college by fall; graduates; gives the commencement address; dedicates it to Tony’s dad.
14. Jim goes on a picnic with Lena, Anna, Tony. Tony is crying at smell of flowers that remind her of childhood and home & Father in the old country. Jim tells her that he thinks Dad’s soul has gone home to the fields that he loved.
15. Cutter leaves with wife for Omaha; comes home early to accost Tony, but Jim is staying there while Tony is at his house. They fight & both are hurt.
Book III – Lena Lingard
1. Jim goes to college in Lincoln, meets Gaston Cleric, his mentor. College is a “mental awakening”. Describes his two rooms, easy chair, work table, wardrobe. More scholarly than his mentor, the more practical & common his memories.
2. Lena comes to visit Jim in his rooms in Lincoln. (The Latin Virgil quote comes here: “Optima deis; prima fugit : the best days are the first to flee”) Lena lives in Lincoln – dress shop; building house for her mom. Tony is stuck on Larry Donavan whom Lena & Jim do not like. Jim’s thought (If there were no girls like Lena, Tony & the Mary’s, there would be no poetry.)
3. Jim & Lena attend a play. The Dumas play Camille captivates them & whenever he thinks of Camille, he thinks of April in the rain.
4. Jim grows more attached to Lena, neglects his studies. Cleric asks him to transfer to Harvard; Lena discusses her childhood & never getting married. Jim tells Lena he is going away. (age 19)
Book IV – The Pioneer Women’s Story
1. Two years later Jim graduates from Harvard; before entering law school goes home to visit. He hears that Antonia ran off with Larry Donovan who deserted her with a child. She is back at the farm with Ambrosche. Tiny is in Seattle running a sailor’s boarding house. She sells out & goes to Alaska; goes to Dawson city in the Klondike (p. 223) & cooks for miners, $1.50 a day. Ten years later with a fortune, Tiny returns to S.F. Jim meets her in Salt Lake in 1908 & she tells him that she has convinced Lena to go into business in S.F.
2. Antonia’s baby’s picture is prominent in the town’s photographer’s shop. Jim thinks of visiting Widow Steavens to find out about Tony’s failed relationship.
3. Widow Steavens tells Jim Tony’s story. Abandoned in Denver, penniless, she comes home pregnant, farms all summer & fall; has the child & is seen as a good mother.
4. Jim visits Tony & tells what she means to him (p.237)
Book V – Cuzak’s Boys
1. It is 20 years before Jim returns to visit Tony. Jim has met Lena & Tiny in S.F. and Lena tells him he ought to visit Tony. Jim stops in Hastings, NE and rents a buggy.
Jim runs into two Cuzak boys pining over a dead dog. Jim visits w/ Tony (who doesn’t recognize him at first) She introduces her children; they visit.
2. Jim meets Tony’s husband. Cuzak tells Jim about the Cutters. He killed her & then himself but outlasted her to keep her from getting the inheritance.
3. Jim leaves promising to return to take the boys hunting next summer.