Jim Burden = Ophelia

In my Women's Literature class we were discussing the significance of Antonia to Jim Burden in the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather. I realized that Hamlet and Antonia are the same character, just as Ophelia and Jim Burden are the same. Ophelia does not exist without Hamlet, and without Antonia, Jim Burden wouldn't exist! This is known as the Ophelia Syndrome, or the lack of individualism. Jim does what Ophelia did, he does what Antonia expects or tells him to do--even when she doesn't intend to tell him anything. He is dependent on what she says. If she were tell him to go to a nunnery, he probably would...