Prairie
By: Hayes Oswald
Prairie Life
The book My Antonia in my opinion, was a perfect description of the prairie. When we got there I felt as if I were standing back in the pioneer times as they explained in the book. I thought that it was interesting that back then this was all they came too, but now seeing how the whole world has changed since then is very interesting. Seeing what they had for resources and other things compared to what we have now aren't even close. So I just found it interesting to be apart of what it would be like to live in those prairies as they did in My Antonia.
The Marie Ratzlaff Prairie
When the bus came over the hill and we caught our first glimpses of the prairie, I thought I knew what to except out of it. I thought, oh it would just be a lot of tall grasses and a few trees here and there. But no, when we got off the bus I realized that there was so much more to it than that. The landscape was cool, the smell wasn't my favorite because of my terrible allergies, and when we walked through that gate I just had a good feeling that, this would be better than I thought. Even though, the grasses were hard to walk through and the thick trees in the draw were hard to get through. It just seemed to me that it was unbelievable how all these species could call this little strip of land home. There were beautiful flowers, trees, strange grasses that I've never seen before and many others. It was just incredible to be in a place where all these living things worked together to make this there home and to provide home for many others. That's what really changed my mind from a boring a patch of grass to a whole ecosystem that depends on each other and is actually pretty cool if you just look closer.
Themes from the book
I think the author of My Antonia, wanted us to really know what it was really like to be living on the prairie during that time in history. She knew that times would change and she wanted to bring to mind how it was like and how we sometimes take that for granted. Like in the book when Jim and Antonia both move to the city to really start there lives. It seemed like the whole book sort of changed from Prairie Life to City Life, and I think that, that transition took a toll on the characters. And she wanted to show us this, to show how life can change, just by changing one simple thing.
Connections
Willa Cather's connections to the prairie must've been really something that she cherished, because she gave us perfect details about what it was like. I think she wrote this story to educate us about how life can change and how it will change as time passes. She wanted us to make the connection to Jim and Antonia and walk along with them on their lives. And then apply that to our lives as we get older. But even though this wasn't my favorite book, I'm still impressed by the lessons it taught me along the way and the connections it made, were really something that was very cool to me!