The American Dream in My Antonia, My Neighbor Rosicky and 0 Pioneers! While many American immigrant narratives focus on the culture shock that awaits those who come from the more rural Old World to live in a city for the first time, Willa Cather's immigrants, often from urban European contexts, face the vast and empty land of the plains. Guy Reynolds observes that "America's massive westward explosion was fueled in part by the explosion of immigrants across the East Coast and across the continent. Ethnic diversity was at the heart of America's westward push" (63). Land and land ownership shape the lives of these newcomers in powerful ways, offering them an immigration experience that is in some ways quite unique. In "Neighbor Rosicky", 0 Pioneers! and My Antonia, Cather presents vivid characters and situations that serve to describe the urban-rural conflict in America and, as John H. Randall III observes, "'there is no doubt in the author's mind whether the country or the city is the real America" ​​(272). In “Neighbor Rosicky,” the notion of land ownership as a core feature of the American dream is more clearly laid out. Anton Rosicky is a Czech who has lived the immigrant life in both London and New York City and found both lacking. Only in his life on the farm in Nebraska does he find peace and fulfillment. Rosicky had worked as a tailor in the Old Continent and had emigrated first to London, where he was miserable and poor. At the age of twenty he left London for New York, and for a time was happy there, becoming "a good workman" (Cather, "'Neighbor Rosicky" 241) and experiencing the city's cultural life, including opera and ballet. As time goes by, however, he... middle of paper... owning land leads to it being a substantial part of the American dream that immigrants come to the United States hoping to realize. Works Cited Cather, Willa. My Antonia. New York: Quality Paperback Club, 1995.---. "Neighbor Rosicky." Collected stories. New York. Vintage Classics, 1992. 231-261---. 0 Pioneers. New York: Quality Paperback Club, 1995.McFarland, Dorothy Tuck. Willa Cather. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972. Randall, III, John H. "Interpretation of My Antonia." Willa Cather and her critics. Ed. James Schroeter. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. 272-322. Reynolds, Guy. Willa Cather in context. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Woodness, James. "Willa Cather: American Experience and European Tradition". The art of Willa Cather. Ed. Bernice Slote and Virginia Faulkner. Lincoln: 1974. 43-64.