My Antonia Study Guide
Due ________________
1
Name _______________________________
Book III
Pages 123-140
1. Jim looks back happily on the “time of mental awakening” he spent when he first
went to the University. How was his life in Lincoln different from his life in
Black Hawk? Are you surprised that Jim didn’t go home for such a long time?
Why or why not?
2. How do the descriptions in this section differ from those in Book I?
3. Who is Jim surprised to have as a visitor? How is she doing with her goal of “not
having to ask lief of anybody” as expressed to Frances and Mrs. Harling? What
news does she bring of Antonia?
4. What is meant by Jim’s revelation that without girls like Lena, the Danish laundry
girls, and the three Marys, there would be no poetry?
5. Optima dies … prima fugit is from Book III of Virgil’s Georgics. It loosely
translates to “The best times are the first to flee.” Why do you think it appears in
Jim’s dream – and on the title page of the book?
6. Why do you suppose Jim compares himself and Lena to “a couple of jack-rabbits
run in off the prairie”?
7. Why does Jim say that he now understands Ole completely? Besides Jim, what
other men are entranced with Lena?
My Antonia Study Guide
Due ________________
2
Name _______________________________
8. Why does the violin teacher say to “noblesse oblige”? [translates to noble and
obligated – how are the two words tied together with Lena’s innocence?]
9. Do you agree with Ordinsky that chivalry is required of true love? Why or why
not? Do you think that Ordinsky needed to worry about Lena’s future? Why or
why not?