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Notes on the Black Hawk Social Situation in My Antonia
The social situation between Antonia and Jim changes as they grow up and as Antonia becomes a “hired girl” in town. At first, Antonia was a girl whose primary focus was helping out and working for her family. Then she was hired by the Harlings. After the dances started taking place, she began to spend more time with the other “hired girls” in town who were more her age than the Harlings. Her main focus began to be the dances and having fun, and people started to consider her with the rest of the “hired girls”.
Black Hawk Social Situation
The “hired girls” were the girls everyone wanted to dance with, but were just looked at from afar when it came to actually going out with them, because of the social situation in Black Hawk. People didn’t think it respectable to go with women who weren’t educated and who were only hired to do jobs, so the men of Black Hawk always ended up marrying the girls who went to school, had proper educations, and didn’t work for anyone else. The “hired girls” were considered a menace to the social order because they were a distraction to the boys of Black Hawk — being more interesting, fit, and lively than the other girls in Black Hawk. But the people didn’t fear their sons running away with them because the boys of Black Hawk never ended up doing so.
