Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Antonia, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Immigrant Experience
Friendship
The Prairie
The Past
Innocence and Maturity
Gender
Summary
Analysis
Jim does not see Ántonia for weeks. One night, the Burdens learn that the Shimerdas are taking turns wearing their one overcoat and are eating prairie-dogs to survive the winter. Jim, Jake, and his grandmother take a basket of food over to the Shimerdas. When they arrive, Mrs. Shimerda cries and accuses them of being poor neighbors. When Jake and Jim carry in the food, Mrs. Shimerda cries harder.
Mrs. Shimerda's initial response to the Burden's shows she's ashamed of her poverty and jealous of the Burden's lifestyle. Yet her intense crying when Jim and Jake bring in the food shows just how desperately she and the Shimerda's need the Burdens in order to survive.
Themes
Mr. Shimerda is embarrassed by his family's poverty, and says that in Bohemia they had a lot of money. He also tells them about his plans to build their house up into a log cabin. Before they leave, Mrs. Shimerda gives Jim's grandmother some strange brown shavings that she says are for eating.
The Shimerdas are ashamed of their poverty because they weren't always poor. Still, they plan to improve their standing in their new life. Mrs. Shimerda's gift shows her gratitutde toward the Burdens.
Themes
To Jim's grandmother, it's obvious that the Shimerdas are suffering because they haven't properly prepared for the winter by storing food or making clothing. On the way home, she tells Jim she thinks the Shimerdas may not have the common sense necessary to survive on the prairie.
Jim's grandmother's view of the Shimerdas is a bit unfair. She expects them to understand the necessities of prairie life as she does, but they do not have her experience, or any experience, living on the prairie.
Themes
Jim's grandmother is suspicious of the shavings Mrs. Shimerda gave them, so she throws them in the fire when she gets home. But before she does, Jim tastes a few. Many years later, Jim realizes that the shavings were dried mushrooms, which the Shimerdas had carried all the way from the forests of Bohemia.
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