Seminar Instructor: Maria Laura - Iuliana, II
Dana Mihailescu American Studies Department
“Ethno-Racial Identity Configuration in American Literature and Culture.
Cross-Cultural Encounters” Seminar
The Jewish Nagging Mother Stereotype in Delmore Schwartz` “America! America!”
The Jewish nagging
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Baumann.” (Schwartz 21) Everything has to be in accordance with her expectations and her beliefs, thus she makes her daughter in law quit her prosperous job because as determined by the Jewish tradition the man is the one supposed to sustain and provide for the family. The problem is that her son is not able to hold any job that would sustain a family. “She insisted that it must end before the marriage took place, since it was not only intolerable that a wife should make her own living, should go to work each day, but it was wrong that the wife should earn more money than the husband.” (Schwartz 19)
Arranged marriages become, as stated above, a way through which she exerts her power onto her children. Even Martha`s marriage is somehow related to her mother`s will as she ends up marring a doctor, a Jewish mother`s dream. “Mrs. Baumann tirelessly praised her son-in-law, and marveled infinitely at his magnanimity in marrying a girl who was unable to have children. She took especial pride in his being a very good doctor, a fact which impressed the women of her acquaintance because they wished most of all for sons or sons-in-law who were doctors.” (Schwartz 24) “In its origins, a joke about the Jewish mother boasting about her “son, the doctor,” drew on the enormous pride of the Old World mother that her Americanized son had achieved the immigrant’s dream of success.” (Antler 3) Thus, having a son or a
This emphasised the ideas of a patrilineal society because these families were coming directly from England and brought the same customs with them. These ideals also lead to marriages that were usually arranged by the betrotheds parents, and the woman's family would have to supply a
As a woman of the 19th century, the main goal in life is to get married. If a woman chose not to marry, then she would be seen as a joke and would be seen down
At this point in time, women were thought to be have belonged in the home and were inferior to men due to it just being the cultural norm. That was just the way of life and how it had always been. Sentimentalism came to the American society around the 1800’s. This then lead away from arranged marriages and gave men and women free will of marriage based off of feelings, attraction and affection. Companionate marriages were thought to have given men and women equality in the marriage, but in reality husbands still continued to dominate the marriage because “male authority was deeply ingrained in cultural mores and according to Abigail Adams complained, husbands had “sovereign authority” over the family’s property” (Henretta, 2012). During
Also, this type of marriage is chosen because of social status. A rich family will want their heir to marry into a family that is worth their status. And lastly, very religious and cultural son and daughters will just agree to an arranged marriage because of the way they have been brought up since childhood and they know that they will not have to worry about their parents of not approving or rejecting of their choice of spouse.
In the book the location starts and ends at the pond to show the circle of their life and how they end up always coming back to the same place after everything. The pond represents closure and a safe place away from society to them. It’s ironic that Lennie meets his death at the pond because it’s a place they would go, talk about their dreams and a place to be safe. The book shows the pond is a safe place with the way they describe the place and the adjectives they use. In the beginning of the book it says, “The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.” That quote from the book shows how calming and safe the pond feels to them. While when Lennie meets his death at
Women had great social pressure on them to marry. Young girls were often married by the age of 13 or 14 . It was socially unacceptable if women were not married by the age of 25 . Marriage was mostly for economic benefits, not romantic situations. A wedding, rather than a religious ceremony, was a civil contract that set the responsibilities and duties of husband and wife . Once married, they legally became one with their husbands. Married women had no control of their earnings, inheritance, property, and also could not appear in court as a witness nor vote . Their husbands, therefore, were responsible for all aspects of their wife including discipline .
Historical context and comedic elements often are perceived to be terms that do not usually go hand in hand when it comes to literary works. However, authors like Jonathan Safran Foer have attempted to seamlessly piece these concepts together through works like Everything is Illuminated, which combines the story of a young man who travels back to Ukraine in search of his ancestors with the history of the Holocaust. Writers who attempt to address or incorporate the Holocaust into their stories are faced with a divide between “the relatively comfortable Jewish American present” and “the dark European past” (Belham 56). Although some might criticize Foer for his usage of slapstick and comedy with such tragic events, the stark contrast of his dark
Those individuals who are proposed of the idea of arranged marriage ask the question “whether a parent can be trusted to find the right partner for a child” (Kolker, 62). These days parents and children argue about almost every single topic let alone finding a spouse for them. It sounds weird when a mother looks for brides for her grown son. But, marriage “as we understand it,
Arranged Marriages have been around since time can remember. An arranged marriage is a marital union between a man and a woman who were selected to be wedded together by a third party. Historically, arrange marriages were the main way to marry. In certain parts of the world, it is still the primary approach. There are two types of arrange marriages. The first is a traditional marriage where the children can, with strong objections, refuse to marry their soon to be spouse. In a forced marriage, the children have no say in the matter. Bread Givers shows an excellent representation of the pressures on children from their parents to be married against their will.
After marriage, women were to take the husband's ancestors as hers. Thus, a marriage had a purpose of continuing the ancestral line and raising the status of the family.
same article it quotes “Numerous research studies show that compared to men, women are less likely to be hired, particularly for high-wage jobs, or are likely to be offered lower salaries” (The wage gap). Studies have showed that men are socially preferred.
Imagine waking up one morning, only to find out that all your investments and savings are gone. So if your bank that you invested all your money in collapsed, you didn’t get any money back. This is what happened to millions of Americans during the 1930s. This era was called the great depression.
It is often said that marriage is the extension of a family. Through marriage, one family is linked to another. In this regard, we have a third kind of women who are victims of the institution of marriage. In The Boarding House, Mrs. Mooney’s daughter Polly is the victim of the ingrained institution of marriage. After she learns of the affair between her daughter Polly and Mr. Doran, Mrs. Mooney forces him to marry her daughter in a rather tactful and cunning way:
"Upon marriage, woman became the legal wards of their husbands, as they previously had been of their fathers while still unmarried" (Martin, 68). It was common for a father to sell his young daughter into marriage and the young women had no say in her preference of her suitors (Mahaffy, 48). This was done while the girl was in her young teens while the groom was ten to fifteen years older (Martin, WEB2). As the father, or guardian, gave the young girl away he would repeat the phrase that expressed the primary aim of marriage: "I give you this women for the plowing [procreation] of legitimate children" (Martin, WEB2). The woman’s role was primarily in the home. "Households thus depended on women, whose wok permitted the family to economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis" (Martin, WEB2).
Many people believe that marriage is important in this day and age, but it holds little significance compared to the importance of marriage in the Victorian era. In the Victorian era women were to get married to a man of the same or a better social status, be good wives, and be a mother to her husband's children. Very few marriages started with love, but a woman's life is not complete without being married. Over time, the role of married women has evolved a great deal and they now have rights and privileges. John Stuart Mill was one of the great thinkers of the Victorian era, and his essay The Subjection of Women tells how few privileges women had and that they were slaves to their husbands. He also says that women are their own people and