l who sees too much of one particular reaper. There is something worth thinking about in these brown, merry old women, who have brought up fourteen children and can outstrip their own sons and grandsons in the harvest field, lay down their rake and write a traveler directions as to how he can reach the next town in a hand as neat as a bookkeeper's. As the sun dropped lower, the merriment ceased, the women were tired and grew to look more and more as Millet painted them, warped and bowed and heavy" (Murphy 45). Millet certainly contributes to Jim's view of Antonia during several scenes in the novel. At first he says, " her eyes are big and warm and full of light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood. Her skin was brown, too, and in her cheeks she had a glow of rich dark color. Her brown hair was curly and wild-looking" (Cather, 23). Millet's influence is also strong later in the novel when Jim describes Antonia as, " a battered woman now but she still had something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by the look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last" (353). These paintings Cather saw obviously set her mind to the way women were and obviously had a great impact on her.Reading the critical analysis gave me a new perspective on My Antonia. I always enjoy seeing how others interpret literature, and John J. Murphy's interpretation was very enlightening. I could see some of the biblical references while reading the novel, but I never would have know about the influence from Millet's paintings. Knowing all this extra information makes the novel so much more interesting to me. ...
