Anzia Yezierska was a Jewish-American author born in the late 1800’s to Bernard and Pearl Yezeirska in Poland. To be specific, Anzia was born 1885 in Maly Plock, Poland. Around the time that Anzia was five years old her family had moved to the lower east side of Manhattan to begin life anew and pursue the American dream. Growing up, Yezierska’s parents had encouraged the children to obtain a higher education and continue learning. During her lifetime Anzia had married only twice; one of the mentioned marriages lasted only six months and the other was to the father of her only child, Arnold Levitas. Yezierska devoted herself to being a fulltime parent for a considerable amount of time during her lifetime, but soon found the responsibilities of motherhood too much to bear. After about four years of taking care of her daughter she gave custodial rights over to Levitas. Yezierska’s sister had then pushed her to continue with her interest in writing. Thanks to this metaphorical nudge Yezierska fell in love with writing and decided that she wanted to devote the rest of her life to mastering it. She wrote many different novels and short stories throughout her life, most of which focused on the challenges that Jewish-American immigrants, particularly women, endured in America during the …show more content…
One reason to study this author, or any author for that matter, is to study many different types of literary genres and styles. In doing so, this allows for readers to make connections between the author and their work that may have been hard to detect otherwise. When someone has the opportunity to read and write about authors before their time, it allows for one to reflect not only on how this novel or story is relevant to the author, but how it may be relevant to the reader as well. In doing so, readers learn to think more “critical” when reading new information or making connections between different
Sandra Benitez was born in Washington D.C. on March 26, 1941. Her birth name is Sandy Ables, she had lived her childhood in Mexico and El Salvador where her father served as a diplomat. When Benitez was a teenager she was sent to live with her grandparents up north where she had become “Americanized”. In 1979 she had left her job and had began to attend a creative writing course. “Her first novel, a murder mystery set in Missouri, was never published. She brought the novel to a writer’s conference, where she was told it was terrible”. (Benitez, Sandra Benitez) This had led her to change her name to Sandra Benitez and focus on writing on her Latina heritage. In 1993 Benitez had published her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, receiving the Minnesota Book Award and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award.
Sandra Benitez, birth name Sandy Ables, was born in Washington D.C. March 26, 1941. Due to her father’s job as a diplomat, she lived most of her childhood in Mexico and El Salvador. During Benitez teenage years, she lived with her family in the United States where she assimilated into American culture. In 1979 she decided to leave her job and began to attend a creative writing class. “Her first novel, a murder mystery set in Missouri, was never published. She brought the novel to a writer’s conference, where she was told it was terrible”. (“About”, Benitez) This led her to become the person she is now and focus on writing of her Latina heritage. In 1993 Benitez had published her first novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, where she received the Minnesota Book Award and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award.
The novel Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska examines the roles and experiences of Jewish immigrants in America roughly after the years of WWI in New York City. The novel follows the journey of Sara, a young Jewish immigrant, and her family who comes to the country from Poland with different beliefs than those in the Smolinsky household and by much of the Jewish community that lived within the housing neighborhoods in the early 1900s. Through Sara’s passion for education, desire for freedom and appreciation for her culture, she embodies a personal meaning of it means to be an “American”.
Anzia Yezierska’s 1925 novel Bread Givers ends with Sara Smolinsky’s realization that her father’s tyrannical behavior is the product of generations of tradition from which he is unable to escape. Despite her desire to embrace the New World she has just won her place in, she attempts to reconcile with her father and her Jewish heritage. The novel is about the tension inherent in trying to fit Old and New worlds together: Reb tries to make his Old World fit into the new, while Sara tries to make her New World fit into the Old. Sara does not want to end up bitter and miserable like her sisters, but she does not want to throw her family away all together. Her struggle is one of trying to convince her patriarchal family to accept her as an independent woman, while assimilating into America without not losing too much of her past.
Anzia Yezierska has written two short story collections and four novels about the struggles of Jewish immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side. Yezierska stories explore the subject of characters’ struggling with the disillusioning America of poverty and exploitation while they search for the ‘real’ America of their ideals. She presents the struggles of women against family, religious injunctions, and social-economic obstacles in order to create for herself an independent style. Her stories all incorporate autobiographical components. She was not a master of style, plot development or characterization, but the intensity of feeling and aspiration are evident in her narratives that overrides her imperfections.
For thousands of years people have left their home country in search of a land of milk and honey. Immigrants today still equate the country they are immigrating to with the Promised Land or the land of milk and honey. While many times this Promised Land dream comes true, other times the reality is much different than the dream. Immigration is not always a perfect journey. There are many reasons why families immigrate and there are perception differences about immigration and the New World that create difficulties and often separate generations in the immigrating family. Anzia Yezierska creates an immigration story based on a Jewish family that is less than ideal. Yezierska’s text is a powerful example of the turmoil that is created in the family as a result of the conflict between the Old World and the New World.
Anzia uses the narrator Sarah, to tell the story of family who newly moved to America and is living in New York City. From Sarah’s narration, we can see the idea that some first-generation immigrants had a resistance to assimilating to American culture, whereas their children quickly became Americanized. Sarah describes her father Reb Smolinsky as the patriarch of the family, who is often accused of keeping his children only for their wages. By her father relying on his daughters to bring in money for the family, he can continue to practice Torah like he did in the old country. We can further see this resistance to assimilate by Sarah’s father when he says “Sell my religion for money? Become a false prophet to the Americanized Jews! No. My religion is not for sale” (111,cite). By Sarah’s father refusing to get a job and contributing to his families American Dream, it shows that he has no desire to assimilate to new American ideals. Reb Smolinsky becomes a representation of a generation that is so deeply rooted in the past and has no intention to move forward. Sarah and her sisters are the newer generation and their view of assimilation is clearly different. Sarah recognizes that her father is stubborn and his difference in ideas of how life is supposed to be when she states that “he was the old world. I was the New” (cite). Unlike her father, her sisters work to further themselves and fulfill the American Dream. Sarah engages in hard work and doesn’t want to beg on the street for food, instead she has the desire “to go into business like a person” and proves this when she buys herring to resell on the street and despite her little knowledge of business she ends up earning an unexpected twenty-five cents profit (21
"The melting pot" is the tremendous power of national imagination – the promise that all immigrants can be transformed into Americans, a new alloy forged in a container of democracy, freedom and civic responsibility. The melting pot only exists in America which makes this country like no other. The characters in My Antonia embody this American ideal of diverse ethnicity. Otto Fuchs is of Austrian descent and came into America in the West in the presence of cowboys and worked for the Burdens in the “milder country.” Another set of foreigners were “two Russians who lived up by the big dog-town...their last names were unpronounceable so they were called Pavel and Peter” (54.) The most renowned set of foreigners were the Shimerdas coming for Bohemia. The divergent nationalities played an important role in effecting the foreigners’ lives. For example, the Shimerdas had “hated Krajiek, but they clung to him because he was the only human being from whom they could talk or from whom they could get information” (53.) Because the Shimerdas had immigrated to America and were no...
She was a writer who suffered from Lupus. Her father died of the same illness when she was thirteen. Her Catholic beliefs reflected in her work, as well as the implementation of violence and darkness ironically used in her short stories. The titles in the stories give the readers an idea that the stories are the opposite of what the titles really state. She uses metaphors and similes to describe the characters and the settings of the stories. Each story relates to the darkness of the characters: people with racial prejudice, ignorance, and evil. Each story ends in a tragedy. The use of irony allows her to transport a meaning to each story that is not easy for readers to understand.
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience of the Life of an iconic artist that was Frida Kahlo
Any great novel seeks to explore human nature, our morality, our trust in each other, the delicate inner workings of our societies. A classic that does more than explore the ways of our world, it exposes them, down to the nitty-gritty bare bones. These books force us to look at the world around us and truly see everything that is happening around us, not just the outer layers.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Mary went from not even attending school in Russia, to star pupil in America, illustrating the promise that America had to offer immigrants. American afforded Mary with opportunities that were impossible in her home country of Russia. Even though Frieda also lived in America, her circumstances represent the realities of the Old World. For instance, Frieda’s only way of learning about American history was through Mary, as she was not afforded time to read while working. By not attending school, Frieda did not only became stuck in the Old World mentality in terms of education but also in terms of marriage. Her father “had put Frieda to work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare” (Antin, 218). Frieda was not given the opportunity to marry for love, as was the American way, but was married out of necessity for her welfare, reminiscent of the Old World mentality. Public education provided Mary with the opportunity to marry not because she had to in order to survive, but because she wanted to. The stark contrast between the lives of Frieda, representing life in the
...she created through her lifetime had a much deeper meaning in them then you would think of just reading it once. The style in which she wrote in was very unique and no one can ever and will ever write with as much passion and authority as she did in all of her work. All the works that she created had a special meaning to her and her outlook on thing that she wanted to share with the whole world.Sometimes being different and having your own style in not so bad after all.
... well to portray how life actually was in those times. Most of his elements are true and add to the validity of the story and personality of the characters in it. He gives his readers a look into the world of a Southern style of life in the given time period.
Edgar Allan Poe is the author that I have chosen to write about. I have read The Raven, Annabel Lee, and a few other works of his. I like Edgar Allan Poe because he was a struggling writer that continued to write even when his writings did not bring him fame and fortune. After his death, his work became more popular with society. Now he is considered one of the classic writers of his era, with some of his works being included in a list of required readings for many schools. I find his work interesting because he wrote about dark and morbid things, that I greatly enjoy. Normally when I read poems, I do not understand what they are talking about. With Poe, his poems tell a story.