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.
After leaving Poland to venture out into the New World of America, the Smolinsky family endured impoverished lifestyles and countless hardships. For example, After an incident between Reb and the landlady (which made Reb revered), boarders began to occupy the Smolinsky family’s
…show more content…
As the story progresses, money is always an issue when it comes to the Smolinsky family. They are always worried about how to make money through various low paying jobs, keeping up with the rent, and marrying off the sisters to men that can support them. In a way, one might deem their family as dysfunctional. In my opinion, they were just doing everything they could to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. It is evident that their family had gone through many obstacles just to merely stay alive. Although they often fought over issues such as throwing away potato peels, or Masha’s severe self-involvement in her looks over her family, they still “functioned” as a family nonetheless, supporting each other as they all go through the same hardships.
The outlooks on life between Sara, who was of the New World and Reb, who was of the Old World, clashed throughout the story. Reb is too engulfed in his Torah to realize the pain the women in his life were going through while he completely focused all of his time and energy into his religion while basking in his belief that men are superior to women. No one was allowed to enter Reb’s room full of holy books, and the sisters knew “that if God had given Mother a son, Father would have permitted a man child to share with him his best room in the house” (9). In Reb’s eyes, everything magnificent and great seems to only belong to
In Anzia Yezierska's 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 it is her life. She was assimilated to the new world in this sense. She felt that since she lived in America she should have the right to be free to chose her lifestyle and make it what she wanted. She believed that she should be able to keep
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 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”.
The Smolinsky parents come to America with Old World ideals ingrained into them. They do not take into
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
In the novel Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, she presents Reb Smolinsky, the main antagonist, who is an Orthodox rabbi and a Jewish immigrant. His passion and intellect of Torah leads him to often make irrational decisions, translating his naive ignorant views into the real world. Consequently, Because of this love and devotion of the religion, Reb often acts selfishly putting his own needs and others before his family, which often create tension with the other characters often. From this knowledge, his put his happiness over his daughters giving unreasonably selfish demands, saying, “ ‘Wouldn’t it be a shame for the world if Reb Smolinsky, the light of the block, the man who holds up the flame of the Holy Torah before America, should come
Per PA Wu, your labs were normal except your blood sugars. Your A1c level is 0.1 higher than the last time you had it drawn and it consider to be in the pre- diabetic range. Please eat a low carb diet and include exercise in your daily regimen.
She was fine with having just a few bucks in her pocket and didn’t really mind being poor. Even after growing up middle class, she kept her composure and didn’t break down often even though she didn’t seem like she had much to be positive about. The Faleau’s feel similarly to the Delgado’s in that they don’t need more. Their involvement with the Mormon church gives them fulfillment and satisfaction. All they have to obtain is the bare necessities and when they have those, they feel as if they are lucky to have them. The other families seem to be employing the coping strategy of “expecting and asking for more”. In the case of the Mah’s, they are upper class but still don’t feel like they have enough. They want their children to have the best of the best everything and keep them ahead of the curve so it keeps them feeling in need for more money. Similarly, the Calafato’s also don’t feel like they have enough. They aren’t upper class like the Mah’s but they’re still living a comfortable middle-class life. There reasoning for wanting more is to fund their children’s dreams and take the stress off of the mother who now has to work more often. Lastly, the Jenner’s who spend a lot on big-ticket items- are living paycheck to paycheck. The father has a stable income with great benefits but doesn’t really stop spending and this worries the wife. The wife wants more so she won't have to worry about
Poverty is a powerful thing which can push people to drastic decisions. Raskolnikov lives in the slums of czarist St. Petersburg in a closet size apartment. He is in debt to his pawnbroker and landlord. Even when asking for money in exchange for items, he still owes them money. “ I promise I’ll bring you the interest, all right.”(Dostoyevsky 6) Raskolnikov says to Ivanovna. This shows us that Raskolnikov is in the depths of poverty. He is so driven by this poverty that “…hideous dreams had turned into a project…”.( Dostoyevsky 3) This project being the murder of his pawnbroker, followed by the looting of her house. He later thinks of the event as something glorious where the sun will be shining down on him and he will be wealthy after he commits murder. This is how poverty has deeply affected Raskolnikov’s way of thinking. and by showing how Raskolnikov is affected, Dostoyevsky is able to demonstrate how the human universal of poverty affects individuals. He also shows how poverty can control one’s life through Marmeladov’s story at the tavern. Marmeladov is a struggling alcoholic who cannot hold a job, and because of his problems, he cannot pay to feed his family, and feed his addiction. This destroys his relationship with his family
In a small town on the west side of Michigan, there was a boy named Aydan Richardson. He was a normal boy, he goes to school, does what he needs to do, nothing more, but what you probably didn't know was that Aydan owned a huge secret business. The Bread Shop, was the name of the famous skate shop, why is it called The Bread Shop, because of an accident in the skateboarding community where skateboard stuff was being illegally distributed.
It’s highly unlikely that this was apparent in my application, but I am actually an avid baker. I had (unintentionally) begun baking during middle school by making rock-hard cookies and soggy cakes and then progressed to box mix brownies and cupcakes during the beginning of high school. The brownies were fail-proof and mouth numbingly delicious, but I wanted to challenge harder recipes and trickier pastries as I began junior year. Then by the time senior year rolled around, I was serving up slices of the French bread I had just baked before dinner and was basking in the attention as the family’s genius baker.
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
Just as millions of other families, the Smolinsky family came to America for a better life after enduring economic hardships in their home country of Russia. The Smolinsky family is made up of Reb Smolinsky (the father), Shena Smolinsky (the mother), Bessie, Fania, Mashah, Sara. They all play a crucial role in the family’s progress in America. Reb Smolinsky is seen as the head of the family; he spends his nights and days reading the Torah and providing his family with stories from the various books he reads. He constantly patronizes his family by pointing out their flaws and even proceeds to tell them about their doomed future in both the present and next life. His dream is to marry his daughters to wealthy men in the search to boost his economic status. He continually tries to marry his daughters to affluent men but fails, only Fania marries a wealthy man. This however does not end up helping elevate the family’s economic status. He later opens a store and marries another woman when his wife passes away. Shena Smolinsky is the mother. She and Reb Smolinsky were arranged into marriage before they even knew one another. Shena married Reb and never truly got to live out her life as intended. She wanted something more than just tending to her husband’s needs and wants. She never got to live out her dream, she remained submissive to her husband till the end of her days. Bessie is the eldest daughter; she is the one that bears the most responsibilities in the Smolinsky family due
Some of the advantages of my solutions are: the bakery will be able to maintain current operations with room for production expansion, moving to one larger location would eliminate the need for two locations, the bakery can convert existing product in to new retail market that will result in higher profit margins. Expansion will also allow the bakery to look consider and extension of their product line.