The reminiscences of a New York lawyer, Jim Burden, about his boyhood in Nebraska, particularly a young Bohemian girl named Antonia Shimerda, are set against the backdrop of the American assimilation of immigrants. Against Nebraska's panoramic landscape, Willa Cather re-creates the life of an immigrant girl who becomes, in the memories of narrator Jim Burden, the ideal of strong and resourceful womanhood. Alternating between realistic and lyrical modes, Cather integrates evocative descriptions of the western prairie, harsh criticism of small-town smugness, and the intriguing transformations of memory seeking artistic embodiment.
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