FREE ESSAY ON MY ANTONIA THE AMERICIAN DREAM

MY ANTONIA THE AMERICIAN DREAM

My Antonia - The American Dream
In the novel, My Antonia, by Willa Cather, everyone seems to 
be trying to pursue the American Dream. While they all have different 
ideas of just exactly what the American Dream is, they all know 
precisely what they want. For some, the American Dream sounds so 
enticing that they have traveled across the world to achieve their 
goal. They work hard to fit in and succeed, but, as in the case of Mr. 
Shimerda, are not always successful.
One girl who was chasing the American Dream was Lena Lingard, 
a small farm girl from a poverty-stricken family. Lena had one thing 
on her mind: money. To her the American Dream was wealth. She wanted 
freedom from worry about where her next meal would come from, or how 
she would pay for a new dress. Lena began her journey to wealth by 
becoming one of the many hired girls in the town of Black Hawk. There 
she was apprentice to a dressmaker and before long began to show great 
potential. She soon began making money with her newfound talent, and 
used this money not to help herself, but to benefit her family. Lena 
spent her free time buying clothes for them, and paid some of their 
bills. She also went to many dances over the summer months. With all 
of her beautiful dresses, many of the young men began to notice her as 
they never had before. Soon Lena began to get a reputation that many 
hired girls got, that of a brazen hussy. Everyone thought that she 
would wind up marrying the wrong man and ruin her life, but Lena had 
different plans. She did not listen to anything that they said about 
her. As soon as she could, she got her own dress shop in Lincoln and 
thrived with it. After a while she moved to San Francisco and did 
even better. She did not let the stereotype of the hired girls get in 
her way of the American Dream. She was determined to reach her goal 
and with all of her hard work she did just that. 
Some families traveled a great many miles to try to win the 
American Dream. The Shimerdas came all the way from Bohemia and 
gambled everything they had to make it in America. Antonia, the oldest 
daughter, knew that to succeed in raising her very own family she 
needed to learn the customs of this new country. With this in mind, 
she asked for the help of Jim Burden, her closest neighbor. Every day 
she learned a little bit more from him. He taught her farming methods 
and other practices of farm life. As she picked up the language, she 
began to do very well in her new surroundings. She helped out with all 
of the farm work and did an excellent job. She worked in Black Hawk 
for a respectable family that taught her everything she needed to know 
about raising a good family. Antonia knew in her heart what a good 
mother she would be and could not wait to be married. When she thought 
that she had finally found a good husband, he left her at the altar 
with a baby to care for, but this did not keep her down for long. She 
found another man that suited her as a husband and together they had 
nine children, all well behaved. Antonia's American Dream of having 
her own beautiful family had finally come true. 
While Antonia was eager to be Americanized, her father was a 
little bit wary of the idea. At first he was open minded about 
starting a new life in America, but soon he grew homesick and tired of 
farming. All that was familiar to him was left back in Bohemia. He 
did not have one thing in America that pleased him as much as things 
he had back home. He was lonesome and miserable most of the time, but 
tried to keep it to himself so that the rest of his family would think 
that everything was fine. It all just kept building up inside of him 
and one day the burden got to be too much to carry. Mr. Shimerda shot 
himself to end the pain of not being able to be close to the things he 
loved. He did not want to Americanize. He wanted to be back in his 
homeland again with his own people. 
People will do anything to fulfill their dreams. They will 
travel great distances or change their whole lifestyles to succeed. In 
any case, dreams are very important to people, whether they be the 
American Dream, or a new bike.