Willa Cather's novel My Antonia is based on the pastoral life of Antonia Shimerda, along with Jim Burden and their lifelong friendship. At the beginning of the novel, there is an epigraph that says: “The best days are the first to flee.” This proves to be a moment of foreshadowing because throughout the novel, Jim seems to be living out his childhood memories with Antonia, rather than simply acknowledging and appreciating them. As a result, Jim's best days prevent him from establishing normal relationships with others, causing him to constantly live in past situations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Jim's happy and vivid childhood memories evoke a reminiscence feeling in him, which he is unable to let go of, thus allowing him to experience his past, rather than branching out into the present. From the beginning of the novel, Jim expresses his attachment to Antonia. Jim begins the novel by saying, “More than any other person we remembered, this girl seemed to represent to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood” (Cather 2). This allows the reader to begin the novel with insight into Jim and Antonia's relationship and how much she truly means to him. Another notable example is found in book four, when Jim returns home to visit his friends, family and especially Antonia. When Jim walks with Antonia, he says to himself, “I could almost believe that a boy and a girl were running alongside me, as our shadows once did, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass” (Cather 153). This shows how much Jim's childhood memories haunt him and how much they have engulfed his life. There are many occasions in the novel where Jim finds himself alone and experiencing his "best days" or childhood memories. This reinforces the truth of the epigraph and proves that in Jim's case, the best days really are the first to flee. Because of Jim's love for Antonia, Jim allows himself to live through Antonia and lets his appreciation for her control and shape his life choices. The result is a depressing and meaningless personal life and a constant desire to go back in time. In addition to living in the past, Jim is unable to form healthy relationships with adults other than Antonia. For example, when Jim returns home in Book 5 and visits Antonia, she is extremely overwhelmed by her many children and jokingly offers to give Jim one. She then asks how many children he has and, according to Jim's account, he responds, "When I told her I didn't have any children, she seemed embarrassed" (Cather 159). Sometimes Jim can make Antonia feel uncomfortable and even ostracized because of the different paths their lives have taken, they can no longer communicate with each other like they once could. Additionally, in the novel's introduction, the unnamed person Jim speaks with mentions that they lost contact with Jim because they don't like his wife. This allows the reader to begin the novel with a sense of Jim's current personal life and the emptiness it holds. In addition to Antonia, Jim spends a lot of time with Lena Lingard. The basis of the romantic relationship between Jim and Lena is Antonia. At one point in the novel, Antonia says that she doesn't want Lena to date Jim. However, for rule-breaking flirtatious Lena Lingard, this only made Jim even more attractive, thus beginning a deeper relationship between the two of them. However, even though they had been dating for a while, their relationship fell apart and they decided not to get married. It's because Jim has always loved Antonia, andbasis of the relationship between Jim and Lena has been and always will be Antonia. In particular, this reveals that Jim's borderline idolization and worship of Antonia is a significant contributing factor to his inability to relate to others. The reason why Jim so often lives in the past is because he does not want to face the reality of adulthood, thus unconsciously creating an unhappy life for himself. From a young age, the fundamental differences between Jim and Antonia's personalities illuminate why Jim fails in his attempts to relate to others. The impact of Antonia's strong-willed personality on Jim is the reason he maintains a relationship with her, and no one else. One of the first examples of this is when Jim first meets Antonia and agrees to teach her English, Antonia enthusiastically tries to give Jim her ring as a token of her gratitude. Jim says: "When she cajoled and insisted, I pushed her away quite severely...I felt there was something reckless and extravagant in her wanting to give it to a boy that she had never seen before” (Cather 16). This not only accentuates the fundamental differences between Antonia and Jim, but it also highlights Antonia's strong, expressive and strong-willed personality. Another example is found in Book 1, when Jim experiences conflict between himself and Antonia, with the root of the conflict being the fundamental differences between the two of them. Jim expresses his problems with her by saying, "As much as I loved Antonia, I hated the superior tone she sometimes took with me...I was unhappy with her protectiveness" (Cather 24). This shows how, from a young age, Antonia is the dominant one in their relationship due to her bossy personality, while Jim simply lets her push him around, due to her passive nature. Finally, in volume 5, when Jim visits Antonia, the differences between the two of them are described through the paths their lives take. While Jim leads a lonely life in the past, Antonia leads a difficult life, but she is happy and never loses her rebellious personality. Indeed, Antonia is able to let her memories become a part of her, without crossing a fine line, and let her memories define her, as Jim so often does. Even when Jim and Antonia were children, Antonia was always outgoing, while Jim played more of a passive follower role in their relationship, making it easier for Antonia to strive as an adult and for Jim to live his life at through Antonia. as a positive eulogy of Jim's childhood, but later proves to be a negative omen of an unhappy life to come. This is because Jim cannot escape his past memories and has no reason to live in the present. Looking back on Jim's childhood, there are eccentric and happy memories of him and Antonia. Looking at his current life, he only wants to go back in time and fall back into those childhood memories, which are the reason why he lives in the past and is unable to move forward in the present. Besides that, Antonia is also the reason for Jim's unhappy life as he idolizes her due to the impact she had on him, is the source of his childhood happiness and Jim no longer has never met anyone else like her. To put it bluntly, Jim can't let go of Antonia and move on with his life. In the epigraph, Antonia represents Jim's "best days", while the fleeting nature of their relationship represents the reasoning behind Jim's unhappiness and the melancholy essence of the epigraph. Due to Antonia's impact on Jim, Jim constantly idolizes Antonia, as well as Jim's view of Antonia. Therefore, at the end of the novel, the epigraph turns out to be true. Keep.