The Powerful American West The setting plays a major part in this story.
The setting shifts one place to another following the major change in Antonio and Jims lives. The land reflect characters in a same ways therefore they develop and change throughout the story. For example, there is a major transition in the setting of the story which is Jim and Notation's movement from the countryside to the town. The countryside symbolizing their childhood and the town symbolizes their youth to adulthood.The setting also may lead characters' behavior to good or bad direction. Some major handicap in a life can Orca one's behavior to change.
It affects character's relationships and opinion about things as well. The relationship between Antonio and Jim changes throughout the story. When he first met the Bohemian family, his observations of immigrant family are rustic. His response to the hardships that Bohemian family faced was "People who don't like this country ought to stay at home. We don't make them come here" (Catcher 89).However, as he starts to adopt to new environment and form a friendship with Antonio, starts to see spirit and will in her and comments "The girls I new were always helping to pay for ploughs and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten," (Catcher 200).
This was achieved because he could understood the hardships that she faced since he was doing similar work. The first scene where Jim and Notation's relationship changes is when Jim kills big rattlesnake. Antonio says "l never know you was so brave, Jim," (Catcher 46) and praise him about how manly he was.She used to talk down to him but after the incident, treats him with a new respect. Although she may never think of Jim in a way he thought about her, but she regards IM as equal person if not respected, and as very special person. Antonio and Jim both are affected by the life in the Nebraska countryside differently.
Their life in the countryside is their childhood where friendship is built between Antonio and Jim while vast American West challenges them. Arriving to Nebraska, Jim notes "Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out. (Catcher 8) by the magnificence of the American West. Jim is at first, scared of the unfamiliar land that spreads infinitely. But soon after, he starts playing in the land after he spends time in his randomness's garden, where he feels happy.
Jim and Antonio spends their time together in the prairie and has a splendid time. Land not only gives comfort but also cheer people up. After Notation's father's death, she is cheered up by working on farm. She is very attached to the land and she claims that she is happier on the country. The land connects Antonio to her old land where she came from.When Jim and other hired girls from the town, including Antonio is having a picnic, Antonio sees plants that were grown in her home country and remembering her old life with re family, starts to cry.
This causes them to remember her father who extremely wanted to go back to Bohemia. The countryside also connects Antonio and Jim together even after they part from each other. When they meet again after they have grown up, they remember the countryside where they played together. When Jim goes to the countryside, he remembers the familiar landscape and his childhood memory comes back.English, her father's death are major hardship where people around Antonio help the Bohemian family.
After her father's death, Antonio has to work for her family on the arm. This changes her personality from graceful, when Antonio came to America, to "manly' as Jims grandmother described. This is one of the effect that settings had on characters. Depressed about the loss of her father, she takes out her sadness by working in the fields alongside men. She claims that she wants to be like men but few times, she shows her "girls' side of her personality when she was watching the storm with Jim.The conversation they had, which went, "Why aren't you always nice like this, "How nice? " "Why, Just like this; like yourself.
Why do you all the time try to be like Ambrosia? " She put her arms under her head and lay back, looking up at the sky. "If I live here, like you, that is different. Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us. " (Catcher 140) This quote indicates that Antonio understands that she is going to have harder life than he is going to. Although she loves country, she knows the work she is going to face and acting like a man deliberately.
The last part of quote meaner that if she could have a life like Jim had, she would behave differently. This was the biggest effect that countryside had on Notation's behavior. The movement of setting to the Black Hawk marks a major transition in the story. There, Antonio and Jim both grow up to become like adults. From different styles of life they lead, Jim continues to go to school while Antonio is busy working.
Both of them leading different path of life, the distance between them grows. As their relationship fades a little, Antonio starts to look down on him again, hurting Jims feelings.He says that "All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls" (Catcher 193). There is a competition between him and other boys. Antonio is attracted to In coming of summer in the town, Jim notes that they can't stand still because they are growing and that "they have to grow up whether they will or no" (Catcher 193). This indicated that Jell himself is also feeling the change.
The setting's effect is everywhere in this novel. The character's behavior, the relationships between characters, and connecting characters to the past memory. This effects of countryside drew Antonio and Jim to the prairie.Both of them admits that time spent at the countryside was the best time of their life and that they wanted to live on countryside. The setting has to be the American West not anywhere else because only this setting could bring out complex reliant ships between the people.
The closeness of the people that comes only in low populated area makes the bond that ties people together stronger. The change in the seasons and its detailed description is also one aspect of this novel that makes it interesting. Overall, the setting of the countryside brought Jim and Antonio together.
