Who Is Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers?

of the Tenements,” Anzia Yezierska (est.1880-1970) is best known for writing about Jewish immigrants, specifically women, and the challenges they faced assimilating to life in the United States. An immigrant herself, Yezierska and her family moved to the United States to escape Eastern Europe’s poverty, and rising antisemitic attitudes. She ultimately chose a career in writing, and published several short stories and novels (Kent 144). Yezierska’s most popular novel Bread Givers, published in 1925

A Realistic Look at Bread Givers and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents       America is a country that was created and settled by immigrants from many different lands. These immigrants came to America in search of the "American Dream" of freedom and a better way of life, and their narratives have been recorded by various authors in both fiction and non-fiction stories. But can the fiction genre be considered a reliable source for studying the immigrant narrative? If American immigrant

Bread Givers is the story of an orthodox Jewish family who immigrate to the lower east side of New York City. Living in extreme poverty in the early 1900’s Sara Smolinsky, the youngest of the four Smolinsky daughters narrates the story of her struggles against patriarchy, poverty, and restrictive Jewish practice at the turn of the century. Sara’s father, Reb Smolinsky is a Rabbi and Talmudic scholar. While Reb spends all of his time studying the Torah so he can get into heaven someday, his wife

In Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers of 1952, a family of immigrant parents living in poverty in the ghetto of New York City struggles to survive. Yezierska’s use of simile and hyperbole emphasize the fact that women's role in life is deteriorated by men. For so long, women have gotten the stereotype that they are only worthy of cooking and cleaning and are treated poorly by men. Unfortunately, Sarah begins to feel as if she is the only one who wants to be treated equally and stand up for themselves

Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers and Assimilation of Jews An entire chapter of Eric Liu’s memoir, The Accidental Asian, is founded on the supposition that Jews today serve as a metaphor for assimilation into American culture. According to Liu, this is due to the ease with which Jews have been able to assimilate. However, the progress that Jews have made in embracing and affecting America has been gradual rather than instantaneous, as evidenced by the character Sara Smolensky in Anzia

Generational Differences in Yezierska’s Bread Givers       Anzia Yezierska’s most-taught novel, Bread Givers, "is an extensive observation of relationships in an immigrant family of early 20th century America" (Sample 1). Noticeably, one of the most fascinating qualities of Yezierska’s work is that, though most readers probably come from significantly different backgrounds than that of her characters, she writes in a manner that allows her stories to be discussed in contemporary terms, (Drucker

assertion implies that the immigrant family-household is the vehicle of assimilation. I will take this assertion a step further and examine more specifically the powerful role of the patriarchal father within Anzia Yezierska's book Bread Givers and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. Yezierska's theme vividly depicts the constraint of a patriarchal world, while Levinson illustrates the process of assimilation and the immigrant, now American, family and its decline. In this

transcends the many categories that society organizes us in; it is a feeling impartial to race, gender, or class. Anzia Yezierska, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, dealt with issues ranging from extreme poverty to the guilt she felt for abandoning tradition. In her book “Bread Givers” she exemplifies what she went through when she writes: “It wasn’t just my father, but the generations who made my father whose weight was still upon me” (297). Similarly to what Yezierska felt growing up, the main character

society and embrace American identities has driven them to this process. A reality of upward mobility and freedom are highly desired for immigrants’ transition. One author who portrays the temptation of this “New World” America for the Jewish children arriving and having their lives greatly affected is Anzia Yezierska’s “Bread Givers” while focusing on the truth of forming an American identity. An autobiography written by Mary Antin “The Promised Land” incorporates the accuracy of family assimilation

Shtetl, Russian Poland, Anzia Yezierska immigrated to America in 1890 at eight years old with her poor family consisting of eight siblings and parents. She grew up in New York 's lower east side under her Talmudic Scholar of a father rules. At age 17 she left home without her father 's permission to become her own person. She went on to get an education and go to a university while working in sweatshops and laundries. (Bread Givers, Introduction) She wrote the book bread givers to let her audience know

The Struggle in Bread Givers       Several changes have occurred since the 1920s in traditional family values and the family life. Research revealed several different findings among family values, the way things were done and are now done, and the different kinds of old and new world struggles. In Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers, Sara and her father have different opinions of what the daughters' role should be. Sara believed that she should be able to choose what her life will be, because

World In Anzia Yezierska's novel Bread Givers, we learn about a struggle between Sara Smolinsky and her father. Her father, an Orthodox rabbi, is stuck in the traditions of the old world and will not tolerate Sara's longing for independence. This novel takes place in New York's Lower East Side, where the population mainly consists of Jewish immigrants who have come to America in hopes of living a better life than they lived in the shtetls. In America, for the family's who still lived by the

Throughout the course of the semester, the concept of duty has been a major theme in various novels, such as in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl, and Saul Bellow’s Herzog. Although Yezierska, Ozick, and Bellow offer different circumstances, they all suggest a sense of responsibility from parent to child. I will show how the relationship between Sara and her father in Bread Givers differ from Rosa and the living incarnation of her daughter in The Shawl and Herzog’s fight to gain custody

Bread Givers 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. Sara Smolinsky is the youngest of four sisters; the eldest is Bessie, whom everyone calls the “Burden-bearer” because the whole family lives on her pay check. “I

with embedding oneself into being servant to two masters. The term “masters” used here are figurative objects where two distinct form of societal expectation collide with each other and one can’t completely ignore either side. Sarah, in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, as an immigrant, faces adversity to implement her personal pursuits in assimilating with the American Culture against her native culture where the father plays the authoritarian and dictatorial rule in the family. Being servant to two