Jim Burden: The Character Of Antonia

This quote uses metaphor to further the understanding of Antonia’s character and her portrayal in the novel. Jim Burden in this passage is contemptibly looking back on the awe that Antonia once made him feel throughout their childhood. This serves to exasperate Antonia’s representation as a loving mother figure. We see how she takes care of her children and how her loving nature has manifested itself into sons who, “stood tall and straight”. She truly is a source of compassion which people draw from, hence why she is described as a rich mine of life. Her innate sense of affection for others also serves to explain why, even many years later, people from her childhood still remember her. Jim Burden, Lena, and the narrator in the introduction