I am not sure what to make of the accusation against Krajek with an axe blade the same size as Mr. Shimerda's neck wound and Krajek's guilty behavior. That no one wanted to believe he committed suicide troubles Jim because he understands the suicide is death from homesickness; and the reader believes because of Mrs. Shimerda's behavior. That Cather spends so much time on this "mortal sin" is interesting to me. Haunting how the grave at the corner of the property is then avoided rather than run over his bones and the stigma that must have been attached thereafter. The death of Mr. Shimerda means Jim loses the affections of Antonia who fawned over him; loses her to familial allegiance to Ambrosch. Grandfather lets Mrs. Shimerda keep the cow, but only after a hilarious scene. And on the craft front, I see how she breathes in and out, attraction and repulsion, life and death.
I wonder if Cather's attention to the Old Country superstitions about suicide and crossroads might add to the local color, or to the immigrant themes in the novel? Kajiek's behavior adds a little suspense, but it's clear what happened, and a murder plot would have made the book more of a Western. There are some of those notes -- Jim reads about Jesse James on the train ride, Otto has the scarred face of a desperado, Jake is a bona fide cowboy -- but really the immigrant story and the spiritual themes (clashing Protestant/Catholic ideologies at the funeral) seem to be Cather's focus. I think her themes run deeper, don't you? (And since she was working with the original Sadilek story, which she'd already preserved in her short story "Peter," reinventing it as a murder would have required more alteration than she characteristically allowed)
I think Cather isn't adding suspense, but suspicion. After a suicide, survivors are left with questions and doubts. It is so difficult to believe Mr. Shimerda would inflict such violence upon himself and this is why an explanation is offered for precisely HOW he pulled the trigger with his toe. To verify the impossible is indeed possible. And because no one wants to blame Mr. Shimerda, they look for someone else to blame and who better than Krajek. Why does Krajek behave as though guilty? Who hasn't suffered pangs of guilt when someone so near to you kills themself and you wonder what you could have done to alter the course of events. The only one who doesn't seem to blame themself is Mrs. Shimerda while the others seem to indirectly. While Cather plays with these differences between Catholic and Protestant theological positions, is there really any difference between the two when it comes to suicide? The social stigma is the same on the survivors, regardless of the state of the soul of the deceased. Mr. Shimerda had been the optimist and the prairie killed optimism in the story as much as homesickness killed him. The suicide is about something essential: who is in control of one's destiny: man or God. I think Cather falls here on the side of man. Shimerda made his own decision to end his life. If God were in control, would he have orphaned JIm or sent a pack of wild wolves to kill a wedding party in Russia or inflicted such hardships on the Shimerda family? It seems God is portrayed more like landscape -- a brutal raw force that gives and takes life.
"Mr. Shimerda had been the optimist and the prairie killed optimism in the story as much as homesickness killed him." Well said! Though I wonder if some of this optimism lives on in Jim, whom the unnamed narrator in the introduction describes as still youthful in midlife? Certainly the struggle between optimism and cynicism seems to lie at the heart of Jim's inner life.
Do you think Jim believes in God? This is a perennial question about Cather herself, but just based on the text I wonder how much Jim ascribes to his grandparents' more conventional beliefs?
Does Jim believe in God? Interesting question to contemplate. I didn't get the sense Jim had a personal relationship with a Deity or that he had much cause to contemplate the question. We don't see Jim angry at God for taking his parents away nor hear any prayers or see righteous behavior. There is an innocence, a naivete, rather than optimism about Jim (so far). If Jim knows God it is through spiritual transcendence found in nature and the prairie around him. I get the sense Jim ascribes to his grandparents' beliefs only insofar as they are a tradition, a custom, a connection to his past severed by circumstances. Jim hasn't had much reason to doubt faith. His brushes with death (the Russian, then Mr. Shimerda) don't bring him closer to God but closer to the Shimerdas.
Love this: "I get the sense Jim ascribes to his grandparents' beliefs only insofar as they are a tradition, a custom, a connection to his past severed by circumstances."
There is the close of Chapter 1: "Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be."
In Chapter 14, when he remembers Mr. Shimerda's life and imagines his spirit resting for a time on his way back to Bohemia, Jim curiously leaves the afterlife out. And when he imagines hell at the end of that chapter, it's only because others have been talking about it.
These both seem like significant nuances to me. I wonder now if I was drawn to Cather's writing in part because this secular Romanticism spoke to me even before I'd accepted my own atheism. As a longtime humanist who now thinks of himself as a non-theistic Quaker, I still feel at home in Cather's prose, which often emphasizes the aesthetic quality of spiritual practice, but just as often approaches beauty from a pagan or secular view.
There is something about death & funerals -visiting with people ( not in a funeral home) but perhaps before or especially afterwards in a designated home or space that brings about discussion and activities that are different than the daily routine- it can be positive or sad but it stops us and makes us think of things other than the usual and tangible. It’s a time to slow down, listen, watch, ponder- each in his/ her own way that our time is limited here, and to be kind to others.
Excellent point. My grandmother's death in hospice care brought me together with my uncle and aunt in ways that we'd not been able to manage before. That bedside vigil was heartbreaking, but also fortifying in the renewal of other relationships.
No one knows what qualities poverty might bring out in them. Grandmother Burden either sensed the desperation of Mrs Shimerda & her need for items to provide for her family OR she admired her gumption with how she so assertively claimed things from the Burden’s kitchen without much shame. She likely realized that Mrs. S might be allowed a momentary sense of control and generously let her grab the pot. Perhaps the book and reading aloud was her way of taking herself and Jim away from the whole drama - an escape.
Right -- and I suppose I feel that the escape from others' misery is a bit contrary to the life of Jesus? Cather was never fond of evangelical Christianity, and she exposes some of those contradictions in Josiah and Emmaline Burden (Jim seems to adopt a much more expansive spiritual view). Grandfather and Grandmother are generous, but they are also fairly judgmental. Even so, I appreciate how Grandfather brokers peace between Jim, Jake, and the Shimerdas after Jake's fight with Ambrosch.
By Ch 17 I see that in the Shimerda family themes of Artists/Dreamers vs Practical/
Goal driven, the Practical ones have won. Though Antonia was like her father in some ways and loved him, she was also highly influenced by her mother and driven to succeed in the new world. They had learned how to do this even if it meant being a bit devious and impacting relationships. Ambrosch was a far seeing fellow despite his faults. Fortunately for them, Grandfather had the wisdom of years and knew that helping the Bohemians get ahead ( despite their quirks) would be beneficial to the entire community.
Jim is an interesting blend of these competing qualities. He is very much a dreamer -- lost in the big Western dreams -- but also a very successful professional. Perhaps this is why he feels such kinship with Mr. Shimerda, who couldn't balance those qualities as easily?
I am not sure what to make of the accusation against Krajek with an axe blade the same size as Mr. Shimerda's neck wound and Krajek's guilty behavior. That no one wanted to believe he committed suicide troubles Jim because he understands the suicide is death from homesickness; and the reader believes because of Mrs. Shimerda's behavior. That Cather spends so much time on this "mortal sin" is interesting to me. Haunting how the grave at the corner of the property is then avoided rather than run over his bones and the stigma that must have been attached thereafter. The death of Mr. Shimerda means Jim loses the affections of Antonia who fawned over him; loses her to familial allegiance to Ambrosch. Grandfather lets Mrs. Shimerda keep the cow, but only after a hilarious scene. And on the craft front, I see how she breathes in and out, attraction and repulsion, life and death.
I wonder if Cather's attention to the Old Country superstitions about suicide and crossroads might add to the local color, or to the immigrant themes in the novel? Kajiek's behavior adds a little suspense, but it's clear what happened, and a murder plot would have made the book more of a Western. There are some of those notes -- Jim reads about Jesse James on the train ride, Otto has the scarred face of a desperado, Jake is a bona fide cowboy -- but really the immigrant story and the spiritual themes (clashing Protestant/Catholic ideologies at the funeral) seem to be Cather's focus. I think her themes run deeper, don't you? (And since she was working with the original Sadilek story, which she'd already preserved in her short story "Peter," reinventing it as a murder would have required more alteration than she characteristically allowed)
I think Cather isn't adding suspense, but suspicion. After a suicide, survivors are left with questions and doubts. It is so difficult to believe Mr. Shimerda would inflict such violence upon himself and this is why an explanation is offered for precisely HOW he pulled the trigger with his toe. To verify the impossible is indeed possible. And because no one wants to blame Mr. Shimerda, they look for someone else to blame and who better than Krajek. Why does Krajek behave as though guilty? Who hasn't suffered pangs of guilt when someone so near to you kills themself and you wonder what you could have done to alter the course of events. The only one who doesn't seem to blame themself is Mrs. Shimerda while the others seem to indirectly. While Cather plays with these differences between Catholic and Protestant theological positions, is there really any difference between the two when it comes to suicide? The social stigma is the same on the survivors, regardless of the state of the soul of the deceased. Mr. Shimerda had been the optimist and the prairie killed optimism in the story as much as homesickness killed him. The suicide is about something essential: who is in control of one's destiny: man or God. I think Cather falls here on the side of man. Shimerda made his own decision to end his life. If God were in control, would he have orphaned JIm or sent a pack of wild wolves to kill a wedding party in Russia or inflicted such hardships on the Shimerda family? It seems God is portrayed more like landscape -- a brutal raw force that gives and takes life.
"Mr. Shimerda had been the optimist and the prairie killed optimism in the story as much as homesickness killed him." Well said! Though I wonder if some of this optimism lives on in Jim, whom the unnamed narrator in the introduction describes as still youthful in midlife? Certainly the struggle between optimism and cynicism seems to lie at the heart of Jim's inner life.
Do you think Jim believes in God? This is a perennial question about Cather herself, but just based on the text I wonder how much Jim ascribes to his grandparents' more conventional beliefs?
Does Jim believe in God? Interesting question to contemplate. I didn't get the sense Jim had a personal relationship with a Deity or that he had much cause to contemplate the question. We don't see Jim angry at God for taking his parents away nor hear any prayers or see righteous behavior. There is an innocence, a naivete, rather than optimism about Jim (so far). If Jim knows God it is through spiritual transcendence found in nature and the prairie around him. I get the sense Jim ascribes to his grandparents' beliefs only insofar as they are a tradition, a custom, a connection to his past severed by circumstances. Jim hasn't had much reason to doubt faith. His brushes with death (the Russian, then Mr. Shimerda) don't bring him closer to God but closer to the Shimerdas.
Love this: "I get the sense Jim ascribes to his grandparents' beliefs only insofar as they are a tradition, a custom, a connection to his past severed by circumstances."
There is the close of Chapter 1: "Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night: here, I felt, what would be would be."
In Chapter 14, when he remembers Mr. Shimerda's life and imagines his spirit resting for a time on his way back to Bohemia, Jim curiously leaves the afterlife out. And when he imagines hell at the end of that chapter, it's only because others have been talking about it.
These both seem like significant nuances to me. I wonder now if I was drawn to Cather's writing in part because this secular Romanticism spoke to me even before I'd accepted my own atheism. As a longtime humanist who now thinks of himself as a non-theistic Quaker, I still feel at home in Cather's prose, which often emphasizes the aesthetic quality of spiritual practice, but just as often approaches beauty from a pagan or secular view.
There is something about death & funerals -visiting with people ( not in a funeral home) but perhaps before or especially afterwards in a designated home or space that brings about discussion and activities that are different than the daily routine- it can be positive or sad but it stops us and makes us think of things other than the usual and tangible. It’s a time to slow down, listen, watch, ponder- each in his/ her own way that our time is limited here, and to be kind to others.
Excellent point. My grandmother's death in hospice care brought me together with my uncle and aunt in ways that we'd not been able to manage before. That bedside vigil was heartbreaking, but also fortifying in the renewal of other relationships.
No one knows what qualities poverty might bring out in them. Grandmother Burden either sensed the desperation of Mrs Shimerda & her need for items to provide for her family OR she admired her gumption with how she so assertively claimed things from the Burden’s kitchen without much shame. She likely realized that Mrs. S might be allowed a momentary sense of control and generously let her grab the pot. Perhaps the book and reading aloud was her way of taking herself and Jim away from the whole drama - an escape.
Right -- and I suppose I feel that the escape from others' misery is a bit contrary to the life of Jesus? Cather was never fond of evangelical Christianity, and she exposes some of those contradictions in Josiah and Emmaline Burden (Jim seems to adopt a much more expansive spiritual view). Grandfather and Grandmother are generous, but they are also fairly judgmental. Even so, I appreciate how Grandfather brokers peace between Jim, Jake, and the Shimerdas after Jake's fight with Ambrosch.
By Ch 17 I see that in the Shimerda family themes of Artists/Dreamers vs Practical/
Goal driven, the Practical ones have won. Though Antonia was like her father in some ways and loved him, she was also highly influenced by her mother and driven to succeed in the new world. They had learned how to do this even if it meant being a bit devious and impacting relationships. Ambrosch was a far seeing fellow despite his faults. Fortunately for them, Grandfather had the wisdom of years and knew that helping the Bohemians get ahead ( despite their quirks) would be beneficial to the entire community.
Jim is an interesting blend of these competing qualities. He is very much a dreamer -- lost in the big Western dreams -- but also a very successful professional. Perhaps this is why he feels such kinship with Mr. Shimerda, who couldn't balance those qualities as easily?