Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers and Assimilation of...

Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers and Assimilation of Jews An entire chapter of Eric Liu’s memoir, The Accidental Asian, is founded on the supposition that Jews today serve as a metaphor for assimilation into American culture. According to Liu, this is due to the ease with which Jews have been able to assimilate. However, the progress that Jews have made in embracing and affecting America has been gradual rather than instantaneous, as evidenced by the character Sara Smolensky in Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers. Sara is not the symbol of an assimilated Jew, but instead represents a period of transition between complete assimilation into American identity and complete dissimilation from her Jewish and Polish heritage,†¦show more content†¦Sara’s willing dedication to her American identity, as represented by her clothing, is contrasted with the blood relationship she has with her mother, and by extension her actions separate her from her entire ancestry and ethnicity. Denounced for her refusal to comply w ith the traditions of her culture, and disdainfully called an â€Å"Americanerin,† Sara experiences the social death that Sollors describes, a result of her cultural relationships having become â€Å"mutually antagonistic† (xx). In this scene she temporarily ceases to be Jewish and becomes to her people and to her family merely a female American. This schism is paralleled by a more subtle contrast at the conclusion of the same chapter that should be noted, when Sara hears the poverty stricken cries that â€Å"Charity saves you from death† (256)! This statement of course cannot be literally true, but displays a further contrast between the voluntary and the natural on a more literal level: voluntary generosity versus natural inevitable death. Sara is further distanced from her ethnicity through her resistance to the patriarchal doctrines of Judaism that are followed by her family. Sexually biased Judaism is represented by her father and his frequent citations of the Torah to justify such a position. When Sara refuses to marry the wealthy Max Goldstein, her father tells her that the Torah says â€Å"What’s a woman without a man? Less than nothing – a blotted out existence. No life on earth and noShow MoreRelated Comparing Bread Givers and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents2809 Words   |  12 PagesA Realistic Look at Bread Givers and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   America is a country that was created and settled by immigrants from many different lands. These immigrants came to America in search of the American Dream of freedom and a better way of life, and their narratives have been recorded by various authors in both fiction and non-fiction stories. But can the fiction genre be considered a reliable source for studying the immigrant narrative? If American immigrantRead More Generational Differences in Yezierska’s Bread Givers Essay3350 Words   |  14 PagesGenerational Differences in Yezierska’s Bread Givers  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Anzia Yezierska’s most-taught novel, Bread Givers, is an extensive observation of relationships in an immigrant family of early 20th century America (Sample 1). Noticeably, one of the most fascinating qualities of Yezierska’s work is that, though most readers probably come from significantly different backgrounds than that of her characters, she writes in a manner that allows her stories to be discussed in contemporary terms, (DruckerRead More The Struggle in Bread Givers Essay1388 Words   |  6 PagesThe Struggle in Bread Givers  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Several changes have occurred since the 1920s in traditional family values and the family life. Research revealed several different findings among family values, the way things were done and are now done, and the different kinds of old and new world struggles. In Anzia Yezierskas Bread Givers, Sara and her father have different opinions of what the daughters role should be. Sara believed that she should be able to choose what her life will be, because