"The Bread Givers"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Anzia Yezierska's book, "The Bread Givers", depicting the chronicles of the Smolinsky family, Jewish immigrants to the United States in the 1930s. The paper examines how the themes of the novel underline that the American nation as a whole must give up conventional notions of America as a land of boundless opportunity and recognize the sacrifices of culture, life and limb that immigrants make to become a part of the American fabric.

From the Paper:

"The profound cultural shift the Smolinsky family endures is shown early on in the book, whereby the narrator bridles at the control wielded by her father over the family. The Smolinsky women struggle to keep the family economically afloat and to support the scholarly activities of the father. However, this older, European model of the torah-reading scholar supported by the labor of others is really not sustainable in America. In America, money matters more than learning, and there is no wealthy Jewish community or patrons or network of financial support and stability to keep the man in the style that would be customary in Europe. Although the Smolinsky patriarch may wish to keep alive the study habits, support of charities, and manner of life that would be practical, once, in a European Jewish community, in his perhaps equally idealized version of old Europe, he cannot in America. His determination to do so makes life hard for his daughters, and causes Sara to turn away from him first in her heart, and then to seek a new life."

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