Where would we be without ambition?
Probably nowhere, because if it weren’t for ambition and the notion to conquer and gain power mankind would have no desires or aspirations to do better or get more. Ambition is the force that pushes everyone to carry out his or her every-day life routines. It can be great or small but it still is ambition. It can be good to you or destroy you and that depends on the risks and size of your desires. In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Tiny Soderball a Swedish immigrant who was once a “Hired Girl” gained success through ambition, determination and persistence. Tiny earning success also enabled her to reach her America Dream. And when it all comes down to it, we all are trying to reach our American Dream and ambition is a step to acquiring
that.
As the story goes on, Tiny’s ambition starts to pick up and grow quickly. She goes from cooking for men in a tent to selling that to “… invest half her money in Dawson building lots, and with the rest she developed her claim…traded or sold them on percentages”(pg. 193). She spent ten years in the Klondike, working up her fortune and that was not going to be the end of it. Her ambition was to grow larger for there was not stopping now.