My antonia

This excerpt is the very beginning of the novel in which we learn about different characters and the setting, but more importantly about the 2 main characters Jim and Antonia. So we will focus first on the characters and the setting, then will see the purpose of this introduction.

1) Characters and setting

The introduction starts with a latin epigraph  wich means "the best days are the first to flee". Through this epigraph, we start the novel with a clear hint to somebody's childhood wich convey the idea of nostalgia and homesickness. We understand later that it concerns 2 childhood friends, the narrator and Jim who meet on a train while crossing the Iowa plains.Lots of informations are given about Jim: his full name is James Quayle Burden (l.3), he's over 40 (l.50) and he's married to a women named Genevieve Whitney (l.25). We know that he's a legal counsel for a Western railways company and that he lives in New-York (l.17-18).