ELIT 48C Class #14

Lie or Lay? What is the difference?

Lie and Lay

• To lay is to place something or put something down, and it must be followed by a noun or pronoun, a thing; to lie is to recline. A lie is an untruth, and to lie also means "to tell an untruth." Examples: Lay that package on the mantel, will you please? Bridgette would like to lie in the hammock near the pool. Sometimes it's tempting to lie when you're in trouble, but a lie only makes things worse. (Hint: Lay sounds like place; lie sounds like recline. But be careful: lay is also the past tense of the verb to lie: Jay lay on the couch all day yesterday.)

AGENDA

•Review•Historical Context

•Discussion: My Antonia Book II 1-8• Style• Themes•Questions•QHQs

Review: Historical Context

Increasing Immigrant PopulationResistance to Immigrants: cheap labor

and untrustworthyThe Homestead Act: 160 acres Opposing Theories: The “melting pot”

versus the “salad bowl”Frederick Jackson Turner and the

image of the American West

My Ántonia Style: Realism

Jim Burden gives voice to a romanticism, or at least an overly sentimental or positive outlook that seems close to romanticism. The homesteading German, Danish, Bohemian, and Scandinavian settlers were the embodiment of a cultural tradition Cather cherished. However, the novel is saved from sentimentality by the evocative depiction of the harsh realities of pioneer and immigrant life and the complexity of the characters, who are rarely, if ever, only sympathetic or only despicable. British modernist E.M. Forster coined the phrase “round” to describe these complex characters.

Style: Imagery and Symbols

Cather's sparse but allusive style relies on the quality and depth of her images. She consciously uses the land, its colors, seasons, and changes to suggest emotions and moods. Summer stands for life (Ántonia can’t

imagine who would want to die during the summer)

Winter stands for death (Mr. Shimerda commits suicide during the winter).

Animals are used as symbols of the struggle for survival experienced by the Shimerdas during their first winter. The essential grotesque image of the cost of this struggle is that of Mr. Shimerda’s corpse frozen in his blood

His coat and neck cloth and boots are removed and carefully laid by for the survivors.

Other Images or symbols?

Imagery and Symbols

In your groups: Take five minutes to review the reading, discussion questions, and the QHQs for today!

1. What are the contrasts that are being developed between the characters in this section?

2. What is the importance of independent women in this section, and why has Cather chosen to develop these characters here?

Discuss My Ántonia in terms of one or more of the modernist manifestos.

• F.T Marinetti: “Manifesto of Futurism”• Mina Loy: “Feminist Manifesto”• Ezra Pound: “A Retrospect”• Willa Cather: The Novel

Démeublé• William Carlos Williams: “Spring

and All”• Langston Hughes: “The Negro

Artist and the Racial Mountain”

Mina Loy“The man who lives a life in which his activities conform to a

social code which is protectorate of the feminine– is no longer masculine.”Mina Loy explains in Feminist manifesto that if a man lives his life conforming to a patriarchy than that man is not to be considered masculine. She also proclaims that [women] who “adapt themselves to a theoretical valuation of their sex as a relative personality, are not yet feminine.” It’s tough for me to tell what she’s saying right off the bat, but I sense that she’s getting at women who prescribe themselves the roles that are consistent with a patriarchal society, then she is not truly feminine because it means she is devaluing herself.If I’m correct, My Antonia would of been a shining example Mina Loy would have loved.

Langston Hughes• Willa Cather does follow Hughes’s advice [about voice] in

writing a story that embraces what she goes through as a lesbian woman, and the way she plays with the narrators is an intentional representation of how voiceless and powerless women and queer people were.

• Q: When describing D’Arnault’s playing Jim says that “he could never learn like other people, never acquire finish. He was always a negro prodigy who played barbarously and wonderfully,” My QHQ would be: who should determine when something is done the right way? (Reference Hughes, Feminist and Queer Theories)

Cather and other Modern Manifestos• Q: Does Cather follow her own advice on My Antonia that she

puts forth in her manifesto The Novel Demeuble?• Q: [I]n the case of My Antonia, how would Spring and All fit

with what we have read, and why is it important to mention this manifesto as a possible influence on our reading?

• A principle of futurism was that “courage, audacity, and revolt will be the essential elements of our poetry.” In the case of relation to Antonia, these forms of “courage, audacity, and revolt” [don’t] necessarily manifest in any bloody war type of situation, but more in the conscious disregard of female stereotypes.

QHQ: What do you say?1. Q: What is the significance of the many single, as well as

unhappily married, characters in this novel? 2. Q: Why is Ambrosch so obsessively controlling as far as Antonia is

concerned?3. Q: What is the significance of Cather painting the female

characters to encompass more masculine characteristics than the male characters themselves?

4. Q: Why did Antonia and the other youngsters go from being content at home to restless youths looking for thrills?

5. Q: Why is Blind d’Arnault’s piano-playing depicted as technically inept, but musically wonderful?

HOMEWORKRead My Ántonia (1918) Book II Chapters 9-15 and Book III Chapters 1-4Post #14: Answer one of the following prompts:1. Discuss the differences Jim sees between the country girls and the town girls.2. Explain the importance of the dance pavilion to both Jim and Ántonia.3. Explain why Willa Cather has chosen to devote one of the books of her novel to Lena Lingard.4. Discuss the importance of the narrator leaving Black Hawk for college life.5. Write your own QHQ