Bread Givers literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Bread Givers. Remember me. Forgot your password? Is this related to The Bread Givers? I must buy what I got to sell. It also relates to self-respect; "a person among people" doesn't make money or secure lodgings any way she can, but does it in a manner that lets her respect herself.
A real "person" is also respected by those around her, accepted and valued by others who also live up to the standard of person-hood. To Reb Smolinsky, this means allying his family with others further up the social ladder: "The impudence of that long-haired beggar—wanting to push himself into my family! I'm a person among people.
How would I look before the world if I introduced such a hunger-squeezed nobody for a son-in-law? I'll even get married some day. But to marry myself to a man that's a person, I must first make myself for a person. Fully "being a person," I suppose, means at the most basic level that one matters, that one asserts one's own value, and that one has succeeded in finding a community that agrees with that assertion.
Another thought-provoking element of The Bread Givers was its depiction of Rabbi Smolinsky's self-justification for living off the labors of his wife and daughters.
Despite my utter secularism, I must say that the value placed on textual study and reasoned, informed argument is something I find pretty inspirational about the tradition of Judaism.
I may not restrict my own textual analysis to scripture or even, I may as well admit, include scripture in the texts I study , but I do feel strongly the spiritual importance, in my own life, of keeping sacred some time to study, to think and reason, to engage with texts, to discuss and interpret.
In order for that activity to remain sacred, however, I feel it must either be self-supported, or supported consensually by one's whole community a congregational ministry model, in which the rabbi or minister is presumably giving something of value BACK to the community supporting him or her—and let me just acknowledge that in my limited experience of modern-day rabbis and ministers, many are radically underpaid for the value they offer their congregations. Reb Smolinsky's self-satisfied assumption that he deserves to live off the sweat of his wife and daughters, while the only way he contributes to their spiritual well-being is to berate them with self-serving aphorisms, is therefore undeniably horrifying to me, as it becomes to Sara herself.
And I wonder if the mixture of "traditional" American values with Smolinsky's Orthodox background, make for a particularly violent collision. After all, the United States is known for fetishizing individualism, particularly male individualism, and particularly male individualism that manifests itself in monetary earnings. Americans, collectively, are obsessed with the notion of the "self-made man. Reb Smolinsky's case is more complex than this: he obviously does value wealth, and uses it as a yardstick to measure the worth of his daughter's suitors and others, but one gets the sense that this kind of value exists, for him, on one level, whereas he himself exists on a more rarefied plane.
Whether this is a genuine belief of his or a mere self-justification for his hypocrisy, it's severely problematic, especially since he is unwilling or unable to acknowledge that others may not share his own priorities. Sara, for example, has moments of admiration for her father's dedication to his Torah studies, but he is largely incapable of admiration for her own drive to educate herself, let alone of respecting her on her own terms.
So um, not sure how long I'm going to keep this up, but Maybe my ignorance of Judaism is at the core of my confusion. Told through the eyes of youngest daughter Sarah, this is a story of a family where the father has no gainful employment. I guess he is a rabbi? He simply studies the Torah all day, every day and puts his daughters out to work to maintain him. The daughters…Bessie, Mashah, Faniah and Sarah are all dutiful daughters but when they find love…Reb Smolinsky rejects all the suitors and arranges marriages of his own to advance his own aims with disastrous results….
When his wife passes, he heartlessly remarries after a scandalously short grieving period and when that marriage goes poorly, Sarah steps in to help him even after he has treated her and her ambitions horribly. Is this truly the Jewish immigrant experience in America?
The accents and dialogue really make this story come to life. Dec 23, Kelly Fugate rated it really liked it. Nov 17, Myla rated it really liked it. If this book is supposed to in any way help us gain an appreciation for Orthodox Jewish rabi's then it missed the mark I hate Reb Smolinsky as much as his daughters did. Ugh, what a horrible culture of ignorant, demeaning tradition that I am so thankful to have never been a part of.
My vision of these type of men were based on the musical Fiddler on the Roof Knowing a little bit of the history behind the author and that this was ba If this book is supposed to in any way help us gain an appreciation for Orthodox Jewish rabi's then it missed the mark Knowing a little bit of the history behind the author and that this was basically a biography makes me sad and proud of her at the same time, but also makes the book better to me.
If this was written today, by just some author from the mid-west it wouldn't be as good. It is clear that this was the life she lived, this was her culture. She did a great job of evolving the character from a young girl to a grown, educated adult with only giving 2 or 3 references to time passing.
The conflict between wanting to be free from her father and yet at the same time feeling obligated to him was communicated very well. She hated her father and wanted to be as far away as possible and at the same time she loved him and was grateful for the strong will he imparted to her, and he was the same he loathed the back talk from her, but valued his influence he had on her I must say that I am glad, for many reasons, to have not lived on Hester street in the 's.
Apr 02, Jasmine Guo rated it really liked it. Everyone wants to live their own life without anyone controlling it. However, it is not that way for Sara Smolinsky. With her controlling and old world like father, Sara struggles to gain independence.
Holding all her anger in as she watches each one of her sister fall into the traps of their father, Sara plans to make a stop.
She will not and could not let her father do the same thing to her as he did to her sisters. I thought this book was an amazing book because it talks about how it is like living like an immigrant that just moved to America. As I read this book, I felt so much emotions. From happiness to sadness, anger to calmness. This book has many description that made me think as if I was living with Sara. The way the author describes their father made me really dislike him.
It was interesting to see some Jewish culture in the book. This book made me think of how culture can affect a person and why they act this way. Sara's father thought that he had to do what he did because of his religion and the fact that he is a rabbi made it more important. I would recommend this book to everyone. Not only can you relate this to history and immigration, but you can also relate it to the desire for independence. I will be teaching a course beginning in September about the immigrant experience in the United States and I came across this book in my research.
What an interesting find! Sara Smolinsky is the youngest of four daughters of an Orthodox rabbi from Poland. She watches as her father marries off her older sisters to unsuitable men. She is determined not to be another victim of her father's arrogance and incompetence. She leaves home in order to get an education and become a teacher. Her father repud I will be teaching a course beginning in September about the immigrant experience in the United States and I came across this book in my research.
Her father repudiates her and her choices. So Sara hardens her heart and her mind, in order to achieve her goals. Is the struggle to survive on one's own worth it? This book had many themes. There was the constant conflict of American values versus traditional Jewish beliefs. There was the disregard of women and their wants and needs by a patriarchal authority. There was the habitual conflict between parents and children. Money, its uses and abuses, was a secondary, but potent theme.
This book, with autobiographical tones, was easy to read, although sad and frustrating to the reader. Looking forward to teaching about this book again. This time I was impressed by the filth and noise of Hester Street in Manhattan. One of Sara's goals was to have a place of her own that was quiet, clean and empty of everything but necessities, all characteristics that were missing when she lived in the slums. Readers also enjoyed.
About Anzia Yezierska. Anzia Yezierska. Date of Birth: Date of Death: Anzia Yezierska, the youngest of nine children, was born into poverty circa in Russian Poland. Her family immigrated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan around Immigration officials used the oldest child's name, Mayer, as the last name of the family and switched Anzia's name to Harriet, and so she became Hattie Mayer. After attending elementary scho Date of Birth: Date of Death: Anzia Yezierska, the youngest of nine children, was born into poverty circa in Russian Poland.
After attending elementary school in the United States for only two years, Yezierska started working by selling homemade paper bags, sewing buttons, and rolling cigars. Later she worked in sweatshops and laundries.
Yezierska quarreled often with her father, who devoted all of his time to Talmudic study and traditional ideas. Largely due to this, she left home in and rented a room at the Clara de Hisch Home for Working Girls. Yezierska won a scholarship to Teacher's College, part of Columbia University in During college, she had to work in a laundry to pay for expenses not covered in the scholarship.
She had little interest in domestic studies, for which her scholarship was granted, and she felt inferior to the American students at the school. She graduated in as a cooking teacher, but she did not remain a teacher for long because she disliked it intensely. Yezierska married Jacob Gordon, but she left him the day after the ceremony. The marriage was annulled after six months, because she had refused to consummate it.
Later that year she married Arnold Levitas, but the two quarreled often over money and housework. Levitas wanted Yezierska to play the role of the traditional wife, but Yezierska rejected being inferior to her husband. She became pregnant in and went to live with her sister on the West Coast, where she came to think of herself as a spokesperson for Jewish immigrants.
Although she took a job as a social worker for Hebrew Charities in San Francisco, Yezierska was unable to support her daughter as a single mother and was forced to send her to live with her father. She did not begin creative writing until , when she was about 28, but she published her first story two years later in Forum Magazine.
Yezierska returned to the east in but could only find part-time teaching jobs. Fearing that she was a victim of class prejudice, she went to John Dewey, the dean of Teacher's College, for help. He encouraged her to write, allowing her to attend his graduate seminar and hiring her as a translator for a project. There was romantic interest between the two, which he ended by taking a three year lecture tour in the Far East. Characters like Dewey appear in many pieces of Yezierska's writing.
A fellowship at the University of Wisconsin in allowed her to continue writing. In addition to short stories and novels, Yezierska wrote book reviews for the New York Times. She wrote her autobiography in and died forgotten in Books by Anzia Yezierska. Related Articles. Some of the best stories take a few hundred years to tell. But if you're in the mood for uncanny connections, hoping back and forth through Read more Trivia About Bread Givers.
Quotes from Bread Givers. I wanted to dance, to fly in the air and kiss the sun and stars with my singing heart. I, alone with myself, was enjoying myself for the first time as with grandest company. I thought of captives in prison, the sick and the suffering from the beginning of time who had looked to these stars for strength. What was my little sorrow to the centuries of pain which those stars had watched?
So near they seemed, so compassionate. Anzia Yezierska and Bread Givers Background. Purchase Go to BN. Take a Study Break. Your list has reached the maximum number of items. Please create a new list with a new name; move some items to a new or existing list; or delete some items. Your request to send this item has been completed. APA 6th ed. Note: Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study.
The specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied. The E-mail Address es field is required. Please enter recipient e-mail address es. The E-mail Address es you entered is are not in a valid format. Please re-enter recipient e-mail address es. You may send this item to up to five recipients. The name field is required. Please enter your name.
0コメント