Because of the rift between Ántonia and Mrs. Harling, Jim no longer feels comfortable visiting the Harlings. After the Vannis leave town, he starts sneaking out at night to attend dances at the Firemen’s Hall but is forced to give them up when Grandmother discovers his deceit. The happy days of Jim’s childhood are clearly waning. When Ántonia goes to work for the Cutters, we feel that she too has taken a wrong path and may be heading for trouble.
The scene in which Ántonia scolds Jim for fervently kissing her reveals her realistic, down-to-earth qualities, which stand in opposition to Lena, who is more romantic, fragile, and dream-like. Later, Lena foolishly wears high-heeled slippers to the picnic in the country and lazily draws her fingers through Jim’s hair to get the sand out; in contrast, Ántonia pushes Lena away, declaring “You’ll never get it out like that,” and gives his hair a rough tousling, finishing with “something like a box on the ear.” Also implied here is that Ántonia is annoyed with Lena’s seductive games and takes out her annoyance on Jim.
The picnic is significant because it’s the last such outing that Jim and Ántonia will have together as young people. Cather treats it like a summary of the past, a recap of the present, and a prediction of the future. Jim and Ántonia talk about Mr. Shimerda, life in Bohemia, and their own arrivals in Nebraska. Jim has indeed become Mr. Shimerda’s cultural heir—as the old man knew he would when he promised to give Jim his gun. He often thinks about Mr. Shimerda. He feels a sense of peace when he visits the lone grave on the corner of the Shimerda property, and he tells Ántonia that he had her father in mind when he wrote his moving graduation speech. When the other girls arrive, they too talk about their families and their own plans for the future.
The most famous image in this book, perhaps in all of Cather’s writing, comes at the end of this chapter: the momentary silhouette of a pioneer’s plow against the sun. This symbol can be interpreted in a number of ways. On a grand scale, the image can represent the pioneers, larger than life, conquering the land, then fading into obscurity when the frontier was settled. The plow and its fading in the twilight can also mean that our own accomplishments, which seem so great to us, are really only a small part of a greater whole; recall Chapter II of Part I, when Jim is sitting in the garden and imagining himself part of “something complete and great.” On a more personal level, the plough against the sun represents Jim’s and Ántonia’s childhoods, which are drawing to a close and will never again be the driving force for them that it has been until now.
