Analysis Of The Novel ' Of Anzia Yezierska Bread Givers '

Anzia Yezierska also had to work harder than most to achieve her American Dream. As an immigrant coming to America she was excited to encounter the new experiences that come along with moving to America. She hopes to find a job where she can use her intelligence but she stumbles along some hard spots while on her journey. When she first comes to America she ends up working for a Russian family which just so happens to be where she comes from. She describes the family as “Americans” it is in quotation marks because she is calling them fake Americans. Anzia believes that the family has tried to reject their Heritage and conform to this new society, without remembering where they have come from. While working for this family she is treated very poorly and does not receive any wages and she chooses to never work for an American family again. Anzia came to America in hopes to find a job where she will be able to use her intelligence “I’d be a creator, as giver, a human being, my work would be the living job of expression (Yezierska 6)”. Anzia is unable to get the type of job she wants because she does not speak English. “Here I was with so much richness, but my mind was not wanted without the language (Yezierska 9)”. She quickly gets discouraged and begins to question the American dream as shown in the following quote…“Who am I? What do I want? Where

In Anzia Yezierska's short story "The lost beautifulness," the protagonist Hanneh Hayyeh scrimps and saves to be able to paint her apartment white to make it look respectable for her son Ady when he comes home from fighting World War I. Hayyeh wants some kind of hope to cling to in her desperate immigrant's life. Although the dialect of the characters is Russian-Jewish and the setting is in an early 20th century urban environment, the idea of immigrant aspirations and the conflict between rich and poor is a common theme in American literature.

Bread Givers tells the story of Sara Smolinsky, whose life is almost the same as Anzia Yezierska, who is the author. Through Sara we see the collapse of a family because of religion and old world ways. Sara tries so hard to get away from her past but in the end it shows that your family will always be there, for good or bad.

In Alexander Solzhenitysn’s story “Matryona’s Home”, Solzhenitsyn creates a relationship between an out of town visitor, Ignatch and an elderly woman, Matryona. Matryona reluctantly opens up her home to Ignatch, over the course of their housing together they begin to form some sort of a friendship. Ignatch begins to understand Matryona’s way of life that “she illustrates a spirituality that eschews greed and self-interest” (Paloni). Her willingness to help others without expecting anything in return is her main flaw and ends up becoming the death of her. Foreshadowing and irony are used throughout the story to show how society misuses Matryona.

Sara faces a number of serious hindrances on her way to making a life of her own. One of them is her father, who she looks up to and starts to resent later on in life. Her father, Red Smolinsky wants his all daughters to fulfill their gender roles: maintain the household, take care of children, cook, etc. Women, in his opinion, do not exist without men and their own function is to serve men in all senses – sexual, psychological and spiritual. Red Smolinsky represents the Old World with its conservative view on the womanhood. She also starts to hate her father when she understands the ways he has denied his daughters, her older sisters, lives of their own. Sara tries to resist this “new” world and her

In the early twentieth century, Fania, Bessie, and Masha, the older children of the Smolinski family are unable to find work to support their hungry, weak family.The youngest daughter in the Smolinski family is named Sara and will go outside and make some money by selling herring when Mrs. Molinski loses hope for the family 's financial situation:"I was about ten years old then. But from always it was heavy on my heart the worries for the house as if I was mother. I knew that the landlord came that morning hollering for the rent," (P.1). Reb Smolinsky is the girls’ father. Reb is also out of work and as a poor Jewish man, spends his days reading holy books and living off of what little money his own children make. Eventually the older daughters will find work. Mrs. Smolinski is then able to rent a second room. The family is very excited when Bessie announces that she and a man named Berel Berenstein had fallen in love. Bessie invites him to dinner at her home. Reb finds out about his daughter’s relationship with Berel and even that Berel was willing to marry her. Despite the joy and enthusiasm expressed by the rest of the family, doesn’t decide to congratulate her, but rather that because of the family’s financial situation, Berel must also pay the full cost of the wedding. Reb also demands that Berel set him up a business. After that, Berel becomes infuriated and leaves. After reading this I couldn’t help but wonder, one

“I know I’m a fool. But I cannot help it. I haven’t the courage to live for myself. My own life is knocked out of me. No wonder Father called me the burden bearer.” This was regarding Bessie, this shows how Bessie’s life was shaped through the influence of religious teachings, forcing herself to stay loyal to the societal expectation and giving up her personal pursuits. She calls herself the “burden bearer” because it was the religion and/or societal teaching for females in Judaism should dedicate their lives to men’s. This was, in fact, the case in which every female figure of the Smolinsky family has suffered throughout the book. Sarah, too, was suffering from such conflict until she realized this is not what she sees herself into if she is to make herself break out the poverty and the so called “religious obedience”.

Similarly to Antonia’s experience, the Hired Girls in town also experience success due to their ardent work ethic and determination to overcome the adversity of which their Anglo-Saxon counterparts were not subject to. Upon moving into town, Jim notices various differences between the native born girls and the Hired Girls, with the immigrants completing the service tasks which the privileged sons and daughters of merchants refused to accept, thinking it was beneath them. The

In the novel, Kracha's family is a full one. He has three daughters and a world of problems at home. Despite this he refuses to waste away at the mill after a couple of years. So he sees opportunity, and becomes a butcher. Unfortunately he fails at his attempts to climb the ranks economically. Kracha, like most workers of the time, drowns him self in alcohol to hide from the problems of bills, finances and taxes. Kracha's wife, Elena, had to take in boarders to lighten the economic load. This is a typical practice of women in the mill towns. Not only did they take in boarders, but also they took care of the house and had to raise the children wile sometimes taking odd jobs to make ends meat. The second part of the novel is about Mike Dobrejcak who married, Kracha's eldest daughter, Mary. Mike is also a mill worker, migrated to America when he was still in his teens. This second generation of Slovaks is becoming more aware of politics, and how important their votes are in elections. With a greater understanding of the issues around them the second generation of immigrants started to vote. Still working in the mills they hold fast to the American dream. Faced with the same problems that the first generation had, now he was faced with wage cuts along with the never-ending struggles with the union. The next part of the book is about Mary. When her husband (Mike) dies she is compensated from the company and the local or lodge he is a part of. Since fatal accidents were common

When the notorious topic of women’s role in society comes to mind writers like Kate Chopin and Mary Wilkins Freeman break the norms of how women in America were imagined to be through different cultures and regions. In both Kate Chopin’s and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s time period women are portrayed as an ample servant to their husbands. Together the texts show how the controlled understanding of the nineteenth century society, had on women. At that time of these writers, people were restrictive about the viewpoint of women’s place in society. Women could not really do much without their Husband or another male figure in their life , they really didn’t have a voice of their own. In the stories A New England Nun , Desiree’s Baby, The Story of an Hour, and The Storm, Mary and Kate have represented how this situation of the society affected women and their viewpoints about life and marriage.

     In Anzia Yezierska’s novel entitled Bread Givers, there is an apparent conflict between Reb Smolinsky, a devout Orthodox rabbi of the Old World, and his daughter Sara who yearns to associate and belong to the New World. Throughout the story, one learns about the hardships of living in poverty, the unjust treatment of women, and the growth of a very strong willed and determined young woman—Sara Smolinsky.

The book Celia A Slave Melton McLaurin is telling us what happened to a slave owner and a slave that he brought. This story goes into details on the day of June 23,1855 about how a female slave that murdered her master and how she tried to cover it up. This story took place not far from Jefferson City in Calloway Country here in Missouri when around this time there were still debates over what state is going to be free and what states is going to be a slave one. As you’re reading the book you will see how race relations of that period was very … McLaurin talks in great details about the trail, the political climate of the time of the trail, and the experiences of a slave told in Celia view, and the antebellum time period.

Therefore, if a family was financially affluent, then the man spent as much of his time learning (if not all of his time). This left Jewish women as the breadwinners in their households. Moreover, if some women were lucky enough to be raised with an education and had an understanding of the family finances, they were better off than most. For Glueckel, she grew up with a “secular as well as a religious education” (Gluekel, 6). In this way, it appears that she grew up in a merchant family that afforded more than the average Jewish family could. While this could give someone more privileges than others, Glueckel understood that someone could be prosperous in life even without the aid of a large dowry (Glueckel, 14-15). Her mother and father taught her the importance of saving and earning. Hence, for Glueckel, financial security was of the upmost importance to her and was something she wanted to entrust upon her children. It was what Glueckel learned from a young age that was the basis of her livelihood. Her upbringing gave her the tools to shatter the stereotypes and create a livelihood built off of earning enough to support her family and give them the best chances in

However, when their mother came through the door and told them of a hungry family, the 4 women did not hesitate in giving away their luscious breakfast to those in need. The children delivered the food to the family and “a poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm”(24). The sisters realize what a harsh environment they live in, and because the setting is so pessimistic, they try to share the little wealth they have so that everyone may live long full lives. The setting in which they live, houses many people who have even less wealth than their own family. However, because of this dreadful place, they try and make sure that their community, or their family, is taken care of, even at the expense of their luxuries.

On a cold day in January 1913, the Belastofsky family arrives in New York city after a strenuous journey across the Atlantic from Latvia. With very little money in their pockets, they settled in New York to flee anti semitism in Europe and to live in a country with freedom of religion. To “americanize” themselves, they changed their names from Belastovsky to Belas to help conceal their European heritage.Out of convenience, Solomon and Gertrude Belas had jobs that had very minor social components to them. As a result, they still talked to their ten children in Russian. One of those 10 children was named Carrie. She lived in New York until she married a man named Morris and raised two sons born in the 1930s, Roy and