My Antonia Characters

An unnamed fictional character. One of Jim's childhood acquaintances, the narrator provides the introduction to the novel. Jim gives her the manuscript of My Ántonia.

Jim's paternal grandfather. A devout Protestant farmer, he becomes a deacon when the Burdens move to town. He has a snow-white beard and blue eyes. He is quiet and wise, and not demonstrative with his affection. Jim describes him as having a great sense of "personal dignity."

An illiterate farmhand on Jim's parent's farm in Virginia, Jake moves West with Jim to Nebraska. He has a faithful and trusting disposition. He leaves with Otto when the Burdens move to town.

Ántonia's mother. Mrs. Shimerda is angry about her family's poverty and jealous of the Burdens' comparative wealth. Jim thinks she is rude and grasping.

Ántonia's younger sister.

Ántonia's older brother. He runs the farm after Mr. Shimerda dies, and "sells" Ántonia out to various jobs on the prairie and then in town. Jim dislikes Ambrosch.

Russian settlers who befriend Ántonia and Jim, but who are haunted by a selfish and fatal action they committed in Russia years earlier. When Pavel dies, Peter leaves to work in a railway construction camp.

A shrewd businessman who lives next door to the Burdens in Black Hawk. He makes Ántonia leave her job as his housekeeper when she refuses to stop dancing.

Mr. Harling's wife. A square-looking, energetic woman, she grows fond of Ántonia, but defers to her husband and allows Ántonia to leave.

One of Ántonia's friends in Black Hawk. She works as a waitress at the hotel, but later leaves Nebraska and becomes rich prospecting in the Alaskan gold rush. When Jim meets her many years later in California, he finds her a bit cold.

The Harlings' oldest daughter. She is a wise and intelligent businesswoman whom Jim deeply respects.

The Harlings' son. Charley is three years older than Jim, and leaves Black Hawk to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

A blind African-American pianist who comes to play at the Boys' Home hotel.

A miserly old immigrant, Krajiek is Mrs. Shimerda's distant cousin. He sells his land to the Shimerdas for much too high a price.

A cruel moneylender in Black Hawk. Ántonia works for him for a while, but quits after he tries to rape her. At the end of the novel, Cutter commits suicide after murdering his wife.

Ántonia's fiancé and a passenger conductor on the railway. He gets Ántonia pregnant, but when they run out of money, he refuses to marry her and abandons her.

Ántonia's husband and a Bohemian immigrant. Jim describes him as a short "crumpled little man," but says Cuzak carries himself with "an air of jaunty liveliness" and is a good husband and father.

A Latin professor at Jim's university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Cleric persuades Jim to transfer to Harvard, but dies from pneumonia soon afterward.

The woman who rents the Burdens' farm when they move to Black Hawk. She tells Jim the story of Ántonia's failed engagement to Larry Donovan.

A handsome Bohemian man who comes from Black Hawk to help bury Mr. Shimerda. Ántonia later marries his cousin.

A Polish violin teacher who lives in the apartment across from Lena Lingard in Lincoln.

Traveling Italian dance teachers who set up a dancing pavilion in Black Hawk.

A banker's son who falls in love with Lena Lingard, but decides to marry someone of his own, higher class.

The wife of Wick Cutter and a "terrible shrew" of a woman.