1.  How would you respond to critics who claim that My Antonia has several structural flaws including:
(a) many episodes seem to have little apparent function in the novel; (b) while the book is supposed to be about Antonia, most of it is actually about Jim; (c) although Jim claims that he would have liked to have married Antonia, there is little in the book to support this; (d) there is an emotional emptiness in Jim and Antonia's relationship; (e) Jim is an unreliable narrator who exposes and criticizes the tradition he supposedly represents; and (f) the novel is a pastoral romance.

2.  Discuss how My Antonia is a book about "class distinctions," an underlying conflict between the old, established American stock and the new immigrants from Eastern Europe.

3.  Do a bit of research of Willa Cather's life and her sources for My Antonia.  Can you explain why some critics claim that Jim Burden is Cather's alter ego?

4.  The narrative in My Antonia begins with Antonia and Jim's journey to Nebraska.  Discuss how the now may be read as a tale of separation and loss to union and possession for both of the main characters.

5.  How do you feel about Antonia and Jim when the novel ends?  Did you like these characters?  Which character seems "whole" to you?  Use textual evidence to support your conclusions.

6.  Discuss why Jim does not marry Antonia.

7.  Explain how the following add levels of meaning to My Antonia:

    a.  Wick Cutter
    b.  Pavel and Peter's story
    c.  Jim's killing of the snake
    d.  Mr. Shimerda's suicide
    e.  the black pianist

8.  Annette Kolodny in The Lay of the Land discusses how men have gendered the land as feminine for many years, and that this need to experience the land as a nurturing maternal figure comes from the men's perception of the frontier as a threatening, alien, and potentially emasculating terrifying unknown.  Implicit in the metaphor of the land-as-woman is both the regressive pull of maternal containment and the seductive invitation to sexual assertion.  Does Kolodny's thesis hold true in My Antonia?   You may also want to refer again to Nina Baym's "Melodramas of Beset Manhood" as you respond.

9.  Is your reading of My Antonia complicated in any way by knowing that Willa Cather (a lesbian) writes the story in a male persona's voice?