My Antonia

My Antonia

by

Willa Cather

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My Antonia: Book 5, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Jim leaves Ántonia's farm the next day, promising to return soon to visit Ántonia, Cuzak, and their children, and then to return regularly after that to hunt with them and just to "tramp around."
Through Ántonia and her family, Jim has reconnected with the prairie—not the prairie of his youth but the living prairie of the present.
Themes
Friendship Theme Icon
The Prairie Theme Icon
The Past Theme Icon
Innocence and Maturity Theme Icon
Literary Devices
Jim takes the train to Black Hawk, but finds that most of his old friends have died or moved away. He walks out of town into the country, where he accidentally comes upon the remnants of the old road that used to run out from town to the farms on the prairie. He sits down, watching the haystacks glow as the sun sets, and realizes that even though he and Ántonia have separated, they are bound together by "the incommunicable past."
In finding the road out to the farm Jim literally comes full circle. That road took him away from his childhood into town, and then into the wider world. Now, reconnected with Ántonia, he has reconnected with his past and in the process found his way home again.
Themes
The Prairie Theme Icon
The Past Theme Icon
Quotes
Literary Devices