Bread Givers, By Anzia Yezierska

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.

Often throughout the book she mentions that it is said that "you're paid what you're worth", saying that little pay results in you not being to good of a person. With that label they were looked down on and viewed kind of as untouchables. They had low pay, long hours, no overtime pay, and no benefits which leads to low socio-economic-status a job that no one wants to pursue. She stressed that poverty wasn’t a sustainable condition, it's a state of emergency. Citizens in the lower classes are left to fend for themselves and the ten, eight, or six dollar jobs are all that's there for them. What she would encourage them to do is to demand to be paid what they're worth because in the end they will be better off.

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 this time period women don't have full rights. People, like Sara's father, think women can not live without a man to look after them. I think this is ironic because earlier in the novel he said that men can't survive without women caring and cooking for them, and now he is saying the complete opposite.

“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”.

Laura Esquirel’s, Like Water for Chocolate, is a modern day Romeo and Juliet filled with mouthwatering recipes. It has become a valued part of American literature. The novel became so popular that it was developed into a film, becoming a success in both America and Mexico. Alfonso Arau directs the film. After reading the novel and seeing the movie, I discovered several distinct differences between the two as well as some riveting similarities. The novel begins with the main character, Tita, being born on the kitchen table. "Tita had no need for the usual slap on the bottom, because she was already crying as she emerged; maybe that was because she knew that it would be her lot in life to be denied marriage …Tita was literally washed into

     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.

Hunger plays an important role in every person’s life. Everyone experiences hunger in one way or another, whether it be physical or even mental/emotional states of hunger and longing. In “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti, hunger takes on an atypical but major part in the poem. The role of hunger in “Goblin Market” is much more than solely physical hunger; rather, it is representative of desperate and harmful longing in a never-ending cycle of desire for more shown through various elements of the language used in the poem.

Bread Givers After reading Bread Givers and having Yezierska taken me through Sara Smolinsky’s quest to independence, love, and education, I have realized that out of all Sara’s failures and attempts to escape her old life, she has come to a well learned lesson. Throughout the novel, Sara faces many hardships due to her gender and culture. Sara, her sisters, and mother all pay all the bills and worry about where the next meal will come from, while their father sits down and reads his books. Their father believes that women are nothing without men, which is ironic because without the women in his life he would be nothing (Yezieska 10).

The novel Sarah’s key was written by Tatiana De Rosnay. The two sides of the novel took place in Paris, France, Sarah’s side in 1942, and Julia’s in 2008. Tatiana has Sarah and Julia travel to several places in the novel, Sarah goes from Paris, France; to Vel’ d’Hiv stadium; then to the concentration camp Beaune-la-Rolande; where she escaped and ended up at the Dufaure’s in Orleans, France; when she becomes an adult she moves to the United States where she remains until she commits suicide. Julia’s side of the novel takes her from Paris, France; to visiting the Vel’ d’Hiv and all the concentration camps; to Orleans, France to meet with Gaspard Dufaure and Nathalie Dufaure; to then going to New York to vacation with her family; then visiting Sarah’s husband in Roxbury, Connecticut; which sends her to travel back to France to meet with Sarah’s son in Florence; back to Paris, France; where she finally ends up in New York city living with her two daughters in a small sublet.

In her novel, My Year of Meats, author Ruth Ozeki redefines what it means to be a family. Readers follow Jane Takagi-Little as she travels the country in search of the “perfect household” to feature on her Japanese cooking and lifestyle program. The preceding excerpt comes from an email to Jane Takagi-Little at the beginning of the novel explaining what the producers do and do not want to see in a family featured on My American Wife! The headings, “DESIRABLE and UNDESIRABLE THINGS”, immediately introduce the idea of subjectivity into the discussion of what makes the “perfect” family. At first glance, the passage appears to be nothing more than an instructional email from the producers to Jane; but a closer examination reveals the

This article talks about how the kids need food from the food trucks with “FREE FOOD AND FUN HERE!” on the side of the van. Some details from the article “Food vans help kids in need” by Allison Colburn, talks about how the food van helps kids get more food. “What we saw last year is some of our children would count on us being there every day,” this means that some of the kids or counting on it. This is reefed to the topic sentence of how the kids can feel about getting the free food. “We want to reach more children,” this part is talking about how they want to send more van out to lots more lucky kids. These are some details the can show that these vans help kids who need

I remembering watching a talk show that Jessica Simpson had appeared on a few years ago. She had gained a few pounds and was discussing all the negative feedback she had been getting from the public. Because of this experience she started a reality show called “The Price of Beauty” where she travels around the globe and reveals what ideal beauty is in many different parts of the world. In one episode she go to Uganda and visits with a community that embraces larger women as their ideal model of beauty. As soon I saw the book “Feeding Desire” it reminded me of Jessica’s experience. Rebecca Popenoe is a social anthropologist. Her book, “Feeding Desire” details her

War and the concept of war has impacted the world and has highly impacted literary works. Two works that have been written in the times of war and are primarily about war are, “Why Is This Age Worse…?” by Anna Akhmatova and “I Know of No Better World,” by Ingeborg Bachmann. Akhmatova wrote her poem post World War One while Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem is assumed to be written sometime after World War Two. Akhmatova and Bachmann had experienced different lives; however, wrote similarity about the same concept. Both authors wrote about how treacherous war was and their experiences with war and how living during the time of war was hell. However, the main difference is that Bachmann experienced the Nazi’s, which her poem explained exclusively,

Food is one of the basic needs of a human being to survive. All of us depend on food for having a good health, therefore with the lack of food many people will be starving and malnourished.