Which of the following themes is best shown by this passage from My Antonia? I thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls very stupid. If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard’s grandfather was a clergyman, and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who couldn’t speak English. There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation, much less the personal distinction, of Antonia’s father. Yet people saw no difference between her and the three Marys; they were all Bohemians, all “hired girls.” People who live in towns are stupid. All immigrants who work as servants are the same. People who don’t speak English are ignorant. The dignity and capability of immigrants is often unrecognized.
