Willa Cather's masterpiece "My Antonia", what is the main content and writing background of this book?

The main content of "My Antonia": Bohemian immigrants, the Shermelda family, left their homeland and came to Nebraska. When they first set foot on this desolate land, they were bare-handed. Unable to bear the pain of homesickness and the pressure of life, Mr. Shemelda eventually committed suicide by shooting himself. After Shemelda's death, his daughter Antonia took on the burden of the family. She was like a big man, going from farm to farm, working everywhere. Later, Antonia went to work as a helper in the city, temporarily freeing herself from the heavy manual labor. But while helping, she was tricked into becoming pregnant and then abandoned. Antonia, who suffered a heavy blow, returned to the countryside with strong perseverance, gave birth to a child alone, and restarted her life. She married a farmer and started a business together. Twenty years later, Antonia has a complete family and a rich life.

Background of writing "My Antonia": In 1883, Willa Cather moved her family to the prairie of Nebraska and quickly adapted to the harsh natural environment on the prairie. She spent her unforgettable adolescence on the Nebraska prairie, and prairie life provided her with rich imagination for her later creations. After 1912, Willa Cather began to create unique works based on her childhood life in the western frontier. After this, "My Antonia" brought a surprise to the literary world.

When Cather was writing, American novels were being read by middle-class women whose interests tended to be traditional. In the United States, it is critics, including book critics, who control the fate of novelists. Their praise not only makes their works sell well, but also determines the status of the writer. As an independent female writer, Cather naturally has to consider the quality of her work when writing novels. Readability and business prospects. In Cather's view, any extreme subject matter and expression are unwise, so Cather carefully conceived his works to tell stories in a way that traditional readers can accept, and to express his emotions at a safe distance. My own anger and resistance to reality.

The period from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s was the beginning of modernism. Cather, who was writing "My Antonia" at the time, was obviously inspired by modernism and began to boldly try to innovate traditional narratives. Cather made her creative attitude clear when she discussed art forms and techniques with her good friend Elizabeth. She hoped that the heroine would allow people to observe her from all angles. In order to break the traditional linear time narrative and present the heroine Antonia from multiple angles, Cather did not use the omniscient third-person perspective in the novel to tell this respected story. and the story of the adoring bohemian immigrant girl.