My Antonia was not written as a true autobiography, but as a correlation of Willa Cather's own life. Some say Jim Burden is just a description of Willa Cather. For example, “Willa Cather was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska to live with her grandparents in 1883” (willacather.org). Cather uses her own experience to construct the initial plot of her novel My Antonia. Cather's My Antonia depicts the struggle and character development of Jim Burden's character as he tries to model himself on a Bohemian immigrant who is unable to deal with the guilt and strenuous life of an emigrant. Jim tries to model himself on a man who is crushed by the yoke of caring for his family. Because he has no father figure in his life, Jim is unable to decipher Mr. Shimerda's emotional pain. At this point, Jim begins to contemplate his romantic vision of life. The irony of this is when Mr. Shimerda promises to give Jim his gun after he becomes a real man. Antonia translates it to: “My tatinek says when you grow up he gives you his gun” (Cather 32). Mr. Shimerda defines being a real man as being able to provide for your family, which he has not been able to do since they immigrated to Nebraska. This causes a chain reaction in Jim and Antonia. Mr. Shimerda's death causes Jim and Antonia to have divergent paths in decision making, and Antonia begins to age. She takes on the parental role, or catalyst, that Jim needs to develop as a character. Jim and Antonia's relationship couldn't extend beyond the friend zone due to the divergent paths their lives were taking after Mr. Shimerda's death. Later in the novel, Antonia had to leave Shackelford 2 school in order to keep up with her responsibilities for... half of the paper ...... which was the position of most emigrants to Shackelford 3 in America at that moment. Willa Cather used her own experiences to begin the plot and provide the background to the story. Both she and Jim Burden were born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska. At the beginning of the novel, Antonia is the crutch that supports Jim during his slow initial development. Later, he simply becomes a catalyst that continues Jim's development as a character. My Antonia is about character development and Jim's struggle to overcome his sense of nostalgia after modeling himself on a Bohemian immigrant who was unable to cope with the pressures of emigrating to America. Works Cited Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Print. “Willa Cather – About Willa Cather – Red Cloud Nebraska (NE).” Willa Cather-About Willa Cather - Red Cloud Nebraska (NE). Np, nd Web. 04 December. 2013.