industrial, and masculine. He is not a symbol of the natural world.

In this respect, they represent the opposites of rural and urban.

Cather had experienced both in her lifetime. After growing up in

Nebraska, she moved to New England where she wrote her novels.

"Willa Cather's own despair and disillusionment over the modern

industrial age, with its empty materialistic values", were evident in

her writing. [14]

Jim is born directly out of Cather's life story. Just like him, she

arrived in Nebraska by train and moved into her grandparents

home. And, like him, the young Willa made friends with the

immigrant families nearby, one of them a Bohemian named Annie

Sadilek. Cather was deeply affected by the suicide of Annie's

musician father as well. [15]

Jim Burden's experiences and first impressions when arriving in

Red Cloud mimic Cather's.

"My grandfather's homestead was about eighteen miles

from Red Cloud...We drove out to my grandfather's

homestead one day in April...As we drove further and

further out into the country, I felt a good deal as if we had

come to the end of everything...a country as bare as a

piece of sheet iron." [16]

Cather believed that people carried around their past around

inside of them. As a teacher, Cather urged her students to "write

out of their own experiences." [17] We can see that she followed

her own advice.