In these chapters, we see a stark contrast between life in the Burden household and life in the Shimerda dugout. We also watch Mr. Shimerda sinking deeper and deeper into depression, caused in part by his own observation of the differences between the two households—differences both in material comforts and in the relationships among family members.
When winter descends on the prairie, the Burdens are safe and warm and happy. The Shimerdas, however, are confined to their stuffy cave with only a few provisions; sadly, the few provisions they do have are rotting. Mrs. Shimerda blames the Burdens, whom she thinks should share more of their wealth. But Mr. Shimerda speaks calmly of his plans for the spring. Ántonia tries to explain her family’s behavior to the Burdens. For example, to explain Mrs. Shimerda’s outburst, she tells Grandmother that her mother is “so sad.” When Grandmother is shocked that the girls sleep in a little cave in the wall “not much bigger than an oil barrel,” Ántonia maintains that she likes to sleep there because it’s warm. Ántonia makes the best of difficult situations, and she hopes for understanding and compassion between the two families.
When a snowstorm forces the Burdens to have an old-fashioned Christmas, members of the family, who themselves have been transplanted to the prairie, contribute items from their own “old countries”: colored paper figures from Austria, ones that Otto’s mother has sent him during the years, form a nativity scene under the tree, and Jim pastes Sunday School cards and advertising cards that he’s brought from Virginia into a book for Yulka.
When Mr. Shimerda spends Christmas day with the Burdens, he seems to be in better spirits than they’ve seen him in a long time. “I suppose,” Jim says, “in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind.”
Here, Cather states the key problem of all immigrants: the preservation of enough of their household goods and customs so as to make life bearable in a new world. Mr. Shimerda kneels before the Burdens’ Christmas tree in reverence to his God, and Grandfather Burden bows his head and Protestantizes the atmosphere, seeing his own notion of God. Each man must preserve his own vision.
