There Are Jews in My House
Lara Vapnyar, in There Are Jews in My House, ingeniously shows her wisdom about life by exploring humanity and human frailty. Remarkably adept at portraying characters, Vapnyar, a recent Russian immigrant herself, vividly depicts the struggles and adventures, dilemmas and unexpected turns in small people's world, with delicate humor and incredible emotional honesty. It is her deft and vivid portraits of different main characters in each of the six stories that successfully develop her main theme: human beings should always stay on their way of pursuing spiritual sustenance, regardless of the adversity they face.
In the title story, "There Are Jews in My House," Vapnyar reveals that morals and faith are two important forms of spiritual sustenance. The emotional transition of the only three-dimensional character, Galina, towards her Jewish friend, Raya, is the main thread of this story. At first, Galina decides to save Raya and Leeza although she somehow knows the danger inherent in harboring Jews. "But the thought of the danger [does not] dampen Galina's ardor; on the contrary, it [makes] her all the more enthusiastic" (28). However, the external conflicts, which arise under the law against Jews, cause the internal conflicts in Galina's mind. Ambivalence comes up inevitably and her hypocrisy slowly outweighs her generosity. Holding two lives in her hand while risking her own life, Galina "desperately [wants] to back out" and to tell Raya, "'No, no, you can't stay here. It's not for me. I am the wrong type of person. I am not prepared'" (30).
Furthermore, Galina's negative attitudes towards Raya, deeply buried in her mind, are unearthed and magnified. On the one hand, Galina still hides Raya in her ...
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... lessons anymore" (138). At the end of the story, her confession about her ignorance in front of her students finally releases her from solving the burdens of sex as well as of exile. “'I don't know!'” she says, “I enjoyed saying these words so much that it made me light-headed. I felt like hopping on one foot around the classroom singing, ‘I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!’” (149).
By creating all these characters, Vapnyar successfully conveys to people the importance of adhering to their morals and opening their hearts, facing the present and relinquishing the past, experiencing the need for confirmation and feeling the desire for shared hesitancy, maintaining their faith and pursuing true love, or admitting their ignorance and confronting their fears. Only when people begin to seek these objectives, can they finally achieve their spiritual sustenance.
The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book starts she is ten years old, she lives in the Polish town of Buczacz with her four brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio, and Herzl, and her mother and father. The Holocaust experience began subtly at first when the Russians began to occupy Buczacz. When her brother Moshe was killed at a “ Boys School” in Russia and her father was gathered up by German authorities, the reality of the whole situation quickly became very real. Her father was taken away shortly after the Russians had moved out and the Germans began to occupy Buczacz.
In studying the Jewish elderly members of the Center, Myerhoff attempted to understand the people there as an isolated society with a distinct culture. Through participant observation, as well as carefully recorded interviews and conversations, Myerhoff aimed to document this culture and understand it as a basis for unity among the Center members. Her immersion in this culture along with her anthropological perspective made her successful in representing the people of the Center. In her book, Number the Days, Myerhoff provides readers with an ethnographic analysis of the existence of a culture. After reading the book, I feel that I have a comprehensive understanding of the Center people. Through her descriptions, based on observation, and her recorded dialogues Myerhoff actually offers readers an illustration of this `society.' "She uses this material to show us the very processes through which her subjects weave meaning and identity out of their memories and experiences," thus not only presenting the culture itself, but defining the context in which it emerged (Turner (in Myerhoff), xv).
To keep her daughter’s “virtue” intact Macaria beats her. In this way the mother establishes complete control over Marcela’s sexuali...
Naomi Nye was born to a German-American mother and a Palestinian-American father. However, she normally writes from her Palestinian-Arab perspective. In several of her poems within The Heath Anthology—“Ducks,” “My Father and the Figtree,” and “Where the Soft Air Lives”—Naomi Nye reminisces about her Muslim heritage and childhood as it correlates to her present identity. In addition, she incorporates the effect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on herself and on Arab culture in her work. Ultimately, Naomi Nye’s poetic work should remain in The Heath Anthology as her style demonstrates how historical events and a deep-rooted heritage can enrich a sense of identity and culture.
In John Updike’s short story “A&P,” the reader witnesses the power of desire. Three girls walk into the store, A&P, in nothing but bikinis. They were looking for “Fancy Herring Snacks” for one of the girl’s mother. The girls were being kicked out by the manger; however, the cashier quits because he desired one of the girl’s attention and tried to be the hero. The poem “The desire of love-power” by Sri Chinmoy, illustrates that desiring something can change a person’s life for the better, or for the worse. This poem, like the short story, explores the power of desire.
Throughout Anzia Yezierska’s novel “Bread Givers,” the character Sara Smolinsky goes through an elliptical journey from a rebellious youth appalled by the individual limitations of her cultural heritage to her gradual acceptance of her inability to escape her ancestry. At first rejecting her Orthodox Eastern European Jewish culture, Sara views the world in terms of a sole American identity. As ...
For the third time today, everyone in the classroom was in a standstill. Eventually, I was greeted with eighteen pair of eyes, which appeared to say, ‘who in the hell do you think you are talking to her like that?’ heck, you would’ve thought I called the girl out of her name with the dirty stares I was receiving.
Anzia Yezierska’s novel and semi-autobiographical book, Bread Givers is a fantastic look into the lives of the Smolinsky’s, a family of Polish-Jewish immigrants living in New York. The story follows Reb Smolinsky, the father of four daughters and a man who does not work but instead studies and preaches the word of the Torah, Shennah, the mother of four daughters named Bessie, Mashah, Fania, and Sara. The book is narrated by the youngest daughter Sara Smolinsky, whose point of view offers insight into the struggles of being an immigrant family, weighed down by the burdens of poverty, in addition to the every day occurrences within a family’s household, such as watching your older sisters grow up and marry, your parents fighting with each other and criticizing you, as well as countless other events that are commonly experienced in the journey that is life and growing up.
In these few lines, Wilner has gone through the entire Jewish life cycle in the early 20th century. Jews live in small, cramped ghettos; they die at the hands of Aryan oppressors; they are buried in a way unbefitting their religious traditions; and they go to Sheol. The first five lines of the poem focus on the death and burial of the Jews of Prague.
The trial was used to paint Abina as a complainer since there were other young girls who worked for Quamina Eddoo who did not report him or his sister. Another way Abina’s was silenced was the fact that her perspective was not recorded. Even though the court case was documented by an observer in the court, Abina’s personal narrative was not. It is probable to assume that Abina was illiterate since she was a slave from a young age and would not have been provided the opportunity of education. Due to this fact, the audience is unaware if the represented story of Abina is an accurate depiction of her story. The documented court hearing provides the reader with a strong sense of who the powerful men are in the room since the dialog was dominated by the men. Another reason why Abina’s story was quieted was because of her
Because of the life that Christine leads, the role of mother and daughter are switched and Rayona often finds herself watching out for her mom. When Ray comes home from school, she would often learn that her mother had gone out to party. Times like this meant that Rayona had to care for herself. It is not uncommon for one to stay out late; but when it is the parent who is doing so, one must question the responsibility of the person. When Christine leaves the hospital, Rayona shows up and helps prevent a potential disaster. She realizes what her mother plans to do, and that her mom will not crash the car with her on board. While Christine is not very reliable, she has no wish to hurt Rayona either; Ray's prediction was correct. As a child, Rayona must fulfill more obligations than a normal teen. Over the time that leads to her abandonment, Rayona begins to feel displaced from her mother. Christine's increasing self concern causes Rayona to feel her mom is ignoring her, when that is not true at all.
When informing the readers that her fans would often write not only about her work but also about “… [her] youthful indiscretions, the slings and arrows I suffered as a minority…” (Tan 1), this bothered Tan to an extent because she By educating herself she was able to form her own opinion and no longer be ignorant to the problem of how women are judge by their appearance in Western cultures. By posing the rhetorical question “what is more liberating” (Ridley 448), she is able to get her readers to see what she has discovered. Cisneros also learned that despite the fact that she did not take the path that her father desired, he was still proud of all of her accomplishments. After reading her work for the first time her father asked “where can I get more copies” (Cisneros 369), showing her that he wanted to show others and brag about his only daughters accomplishments.
By developing a relationship between two people who come from completely distinct worlds, Chaim Potok was able to instigate and investigate a profound and deeply moving story of true friendship and the importance of father-son interconnection through self-realization in the work of The Chosen by explicitly introducing a series of challenges that question the morality and judgment of each protagonist. Through his masterpiece and by inserting complex situations, Chaim Potok took to his benefit to display the comparison between his characters and normal people their similarities and differences.
Thrown into circumstances not yet prepared for, Yehuda, his older sister Lala, and his mother, overcame many life threatening situations after Yehuda’s father was executed. Prior to the war, Nir’s father was a well-to-do business man, who provided greatly for his family. They were often seen as a true symbol of the Jewish wealth in Poland. This symbol became a target in 1939 as German, anti-Jewish, Nazi’s invaded Poland to start the beginning of World War II. “Going from a well-to-do family to refugees in the matter on a couple days was a disturbing change” (Nir 14). These changes would become the norm as the family was moved into a new apartment, sharing it with a German official. A week after the war started, a group of Nazi’s raided Jewish homes, taking Jewish men. Yehuda’s father said goodbye, naïve to what was happening. Yeahuda secretly followed the Nazi’s and watched as the hand-cuffed men, his own father and uncle among them, were shot down in the woods outside the city. Stunned, and unable to comprehend, Nir retrieved back to his home to share the news with his mother and sister. “My Mother became the backbone of the family; A role she would maintain throughout much of the war. I sensed an attitude of determination in her; an attitude that would help us to make quick decisions, decisions that our lives depended on” (Nir 12). As things got