Group #1: The Latin epigraph of the novel-- “Optima dies . . . prima fugit”-- in English means
“The best days are the first to pass.” If the days from Book I are Jim Burden’s best days, what
makes them so great?
Group #2: According to one scholar, “When one studies Cather’s fiction, it is difficult to tell
where reality ends and fiction begins.” How does the introduction to My Antonia lend itself to
this view?
Group #3: In the first chapters of My Antonia, Jim repeatedly refers to the landsape as the edge
of the world. Does he feel the same way by the end of Book I?
Group #4: What is the young Jim Burden’s attitude towards death, and what does this attitude
reveal about his character?
Group #5: Do you think Antonia is a three-dimensional, rounded character, or a onedimensional, flat character? Why?