Looking Deeper Into the Story of My Antonia

Willa Cather in her novel My Antonia offers her view of life during the pioneer time.
If My Antonia would have been told by Antonia's perspective many things would have changed.  For instance, when the Burden's and Shimerda's got in a fight we got to see how Jim reacted and felt, but if Antonia would have been telling the story I'm sure it would have been a whole new fight.  We would have also been able to see what Antonia's first impression of Jim was when he and his family drove over to the Shimerda's house that first day they met.  The story would have been more powerful if we could have seen and felt everything from Antonia's point of view.  By seeing the new country for the first time, learning to speak a foreign language, feeling the pain she felt when her father die, and feeling alone and scared when her fiance left her and her child.  If Cather had written the story from a woman's perspective the story would have been more relatable.

In my opinion, Willa Cather did not do an effective job writing as a man.  At the beginning of the story, if I had not already known it was Jim narrating, I would have thought it was a woman from the story.  All throughout the story I did not feel connected with Jim because she did not know exactly how a man would have felt in certain situations. 

I believe Jim changed the title from Antonia to My Antonia because there was a certain connection between them.  They were always just friends, but deep down inside they both felt more for each other.  You would have thought they were two kids who have grown up together their whole lives and were the same age.  Even though Antonia got married to a Bohemian man and Jim went on to law school, you could still feel the love they had for each other.

My Antonia is a story full of life's ups and downs.  Jim and Antonia over come these obstacles together and as they grow older they shape each others lives in ways they did not even see.  I wonder what their lives would have been like if Jim's parents had not of died and he had never had to move to Black Hawk, Nebraska to live with his grandparents?