Willa Cather, Sexuality and My Antonia

His forceful killing of the snake demonstrates a dislike of the phallic." Cather's clever insertion of her initial as the snake "was lying in long loose waves, like a letter 'W'" forms a literary technique she perhaps used to inform her readers on her lesbian position. .
             The snake is further sexualised by the way "he would spring, spring his length," mirroring an erect penis. Cather's treatment of the snake as a phallic symbol confuses the boundaries between the snake as merely an object as it can perhaps be seen as an undesirable subject because of her sexual position. Jim is after perceived as a local hero and describes how "The great land had never looked to me so big and free. If the red grass were full of rattlers, I was equal to them all." Jim's feeling towards the landscape at this point reflect an essence of freedom which can be interpreted as Cather's sexual freedom and choice to be a lesbian. Cather also perhaps expresses how her sexuality does not make her unequal to men or heterosexual relationships in this particular line in the novel. Farwell notes how "Feminist literary theory has been eager to recognize the possibility of disruptive plots and spaces that position women as subjects of their own stories." Perhaps this event can be taken as Cather's way of positioning herself within the novel as a lesbian writer in the twentieth century and how she attempts to create a lesbian narrative space in the early stages of the novel by symbolising the snake. Cather's choice to use a male voice in narrating her story was perhaps because she was essentially writing about male orientated feelings and events. Cather however, can be actively seen to criticise the gender norms of society in doing so, as we furtively analyse the characters of Jim and Antonia and the way in which Cather presents them to the reader. Judith Fetterley recognizes how: Jim behaves in ways that mark him as female.