Introduction Bread Givers is a novel written by a Jewish lady Yezierska Anzia in 1925, the novel covers a number of aspects. The set up is in the old Manhattan in the United States of America, in the 1920s. The author is believed to have migrated from Poland to United States of America in the year 1890. The novel talks about a poor Jewish immigrant named Reb Smolinsky, who has four daughters namely, Bessie, Mashah, Faniah, and Sara. Sara goes against the beliefs of her father by adopting divergent views. This paper seeks to explore how identities are shaped by cultural and societal influence within the context of equality and inequality.
Identity in Anzia’s novel comes in different ways and is considered to be an essential thing. The first place where we encounter identity is where the main character in this book by the name Sara and her sisters are subjected to the harsh laws of Jews. It is said that the family of Reb Smolinsky migrated from Poland to the United States of America. Their identity in the United States of America is shaped by Reb Smolinsky belief in the religion. His religion believes that God has no time or cannot listen to a woman or women.
The religion also believes that women are not blessed with some brains to learn the word of God, but the religion reduces them to be servants of men. This is an identity of what their religion believes in, and so they have to practice otherwise, you will be going against the law of the religion. To be identified as a Jewish lady you have to practice this belief, and there is no room for compromise. The only role that a Jewish woman can play for identity is to become a wife and a mother. This means that for a lady to be recognized in the Jewish religion, she must become someone’s wife and eventually become a mother.
A woman has no choice to choose her partner; instead it is men who decide for her. It is because of this reason that Sara’s sisters had to abide by the wish of their father. Another stage of identity is when Sara defies her father, and the religion goes the American style. She wants to be identified with the new world so that she can fit in the society. This is where ethnicity comes in the novel, and that means that she has to behave like the American, where women have a say. She refuses to follow instructions from her father and defies him so that she can the identity of the American woman.
She wants to become an independent woman so that she does not depend on anyone for assistance. Here you will agree with me that Sara is str ruggling with gender equality as we have been told that the Jewish belief is that a woman has no say in the society. A Jewish woman cannot think independently and so she must have a man, where she will depend to him as she serves him as a husband. A woman is supposed to be a servant of a man but in America, there is gender equality, and women are respected and given the opportunity to pursue their dreams.
It is because of this reason that Sara decides to identify herself by defying her father. After Sara has become independent, we are told that she realizes that she is alone. In return, she goes back to Jewish customs so that she marries a Jewish husband. This shows that Sara has decided to identify herself by marrying a Jewish husband so that she feels to be a Jewish woman. Sara also identifies herself by becoming independent woman where she takes up the mantle of becoming a businesswoman. Remember according to her father and the entire religion of the Jewish, a woman can only become a man’s servant.
This means that a woman is not supposed to work independently instead she is supposed to depend on a man. But Sara defies this in her search of identity by plunging herself into business. She entures into the business where she takes care of herself and the money made has improved the family. She even admits that the wanted to go and do some business where she could be earning twenty-five and even thirty-five cents and that is making her independent. This feeling of Sara makes one realize that she has now identified herself, and she feels Americanized something that has been nagging her so much.
She works very hard, but she feels that she is not recognized though she is putting a lot of energy in what she does. This is where it hits her that she can only become an American woman if she becomes educated. When Sara marries Max, she realizes that as she seeks education, it will be difficult to serve both of them. Sara then knows that even though Max knows what is in the new world, he still for the belief of their religion called Torah. This means that Max is going to deny Sara her rights, and that is what she is avoiding.
Torah has made Sara not to be able to identify herself. The benefits Sara gets when she interacts with others are a lot, and they really changed her life. When she went for her college education, she was able to interact with people of the different caliber that changed her life very completely. Sara realizes that she had indeed made a very big step in her life that is why she said the when she went for her college education; she felt that she had changed a lot. She said that she felt like Columbus meaning she had discovered a new life within her.
This means that Sara had experienced different kind of culture, which she had not experienced in her life. But while there also she experienced a hard life because she said her clothes or her dressing code makes her look like an outsider. Here she identifies her as not being one of the America. American established their way of social life meaning they cannot freely enjoy their company. This is where we realize that the aspect of racism comes in that is why Sara says that Americans have their way of social class. She was taken as an immigrant despite her efforts to do everything so that she could look like them.
OUT OF THIS FURNACE Out of this furnace is a novel that was written by Thomas Bell and basically it talks about the struggle of immigrants in America. It is a book that brings out the real issues that immigrants were facing in the United States of America. The set of the book is in Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The book talks about a Slovakia family that moved to the United States of America. The novel illustrates a lot of problems faced by one family that was going to the United States of America from Hungary.
The first immigrant of the family was George Kracha, and it goes on to the third generation of Dobie Dobrejcak. Immigrants faced a lot of tribulations when they first arrived in America. The story begins with the author telling us how George Kracha, who came to the United States of America in the year 1881. He first landed in New York City before going to Pennsylvania where to look for some job. There was a job available at the railroad that he started working there before moving to the steel mills. It is during this time that many people from Europe traveled to the United States of America in search of greener pastures.
Here then we must know the role of the history that should play in our study is to show us how the society has been changing. The working conditions of the workers in the Millers were not good and faced a lot of challenges. Some workers even worked for extra-hours just to increase their income. Despite working for extra hours, they were under paid something that ruined the lives of most immigrants. The workers or the employees and the owners of the mills engaged each other in a struggle. The owners of the mills were called the capitalists, and they were less in number, but they were the elites.
These are people who were rich and they owned the millers everywhere employing so many people. Many of the workers lost their lives in machines and yet they were not compensated. With this kind of events that took place, the role of the fiction-based play in our study of the past is to remind us how the world has changed. It shows us that changes have really happened in our lives especially on the rights of the workers. It tells us where people came from the kind of struggle that was witnessed for the rules of the mills to change. Remember we have been reminded that the still workers were orking in tough conditions.
Another role it should be to show us how dark forces were eliminated after oppressing p steel workers. Pittsburgh was the place with a lot of steel mills in the United States in those days. Another role it should be for the play to describe the plans that were used so that workers were able to carry the day. The main role as I said it should be to show people where the immigrants have come from and how they were treated. This will help us to analyze and see if there are changes today, or nothing has happened from time immemorial.
Historians have proved that the matters that were affecting people in those days have changed, but they are still there. Immigrants still face a difficult moment in the United States of America. So these books are playing a very big role in making sure that we understand our past. Some of the young people who are enjoying the rights of the workers may not know what other people went through for them to be where they are. So the books illustrate what transpired in those days so that people were able to be granted those rights.
The books are very important as they telling us the new generation where almost all of us came from. It is good that we can trace our origin so that we embrace one another as human beings. are occasions when some of us mistreat the current people in the name of immigrants; we should be able to know that everyone of us is an immigrant. The books are playing a very important role in telling us what really happened and who did it. One would realize that from generation to generation there has been a technology discovery. Technology has been making the world a better place to be and has made work easy.
Dobbie, who is in the third generation, was forced to do some illegal wiring so that those people whose power had been cut, they could get some power. This means that the people who were present those days were living under sub-human conditions. So in general readers can know how the workers of the mills survived during those harsh times. Historical books remind us about the historical injustices that were done by a section of S. There people who felt so powerful. Finally, they also tell us the importance of living together and how togetherness can help us achieve the unachievable.
