The Characters
The characters in Bread Givers, from coarse pushcart clothing to their speech peppered with Yiddish expressions, are faithfully modeled upon the real immigrants of Yezierska’s own acquaintance. Some, such as Zalmon the fish peddler, are literary memorials to the people whom Yezierska cherished for their inspiration. Other characters, such as Sara and Mr. Smolinsky, replicate the struggle that Yezierska herself experienced between the demands of traditional culture and the opportunities of contemporary American society. The Smolinsky family illustrates the gender arrangements which constrained Yezierska, even as she celebrated the culture which created them.
Many of the details of Yezierska’s life coincide with those of her character, Sara Smolinsky (both are children of poor, Jewish immigrants, both helped support their families while still children, and both sacrificed much to earn an education). Yet as a literary character, Sara is able to act out conflicts in a manner both dramatic and satisfying. Sara is a model of resourcefulness at fighting the hostile influences of family and culture. As a child, Sara’s character is largely formed by reacting to the example set by her three older sisters—Bessie, Masha, and Fania.
Like their mother, the three older girls do not question female submission. Mrs. Smolinsky, once the petted daughter of well-to-do parents in a Polish shtetl, considers herself blessed by the honor of marriage to Mr. Smolinsky, a highly esteemed scholar. In Poland, Mr. Smolinsky’s devotion to study is a sign of the inherited wealth which supports it. Even when financial reverses force them to emigrate and face great changes, Mrs. Smolinsky still believes in her husband’s godliness and her responsibility to enable him to study. She wavers only when Mr. Smolinsky, taking matters into his own hands, makes their financial situation worse. Even though he gives much of the women’s earning away to charity and is swindled out of the small savings which might have made them comfortable, Mrs. Smolinsky never fails to see the light of God shining in her husband’s eyes.
Mrs. Smolinsky’s acceptance of her husband’s spiritual, and hence essential, superiority, is solidly reinforced in the minds of the three older daughters. Bessie, the oldest, is famous for being the burden-bearer of her father’s house. Working long hours in a sweatshop and bringing home piecework makes her more valuable to him. Her father turns the one suitor she has out of the house because he refuses to pay a dowry. She knows that she has been broken to her father’s will, and the loss of her lover increases her despair. True to her self-sacrificing nature, she marries a widower who willingly pays Mr. Smolinsky’s price, rationalizing her lot by concern for the man’s wild, unkempt children. Like their sister Bessie, Masha and Fania are unable to overcome the injunction of submissiveness to the father’s will. Masha and Fania watch helplessly as their father bans the men they love from the house as well for what he calls their godlessness and inability to support his daughters adequately. When Mr. Smolinsky arranges marriages for the two girls with truly unsuitable men, they are forced to accept their situations. Believing that the unhappiness and poverty which marriage has brought them is the norm, and unable to see beyond the cultural pattern which determines their lives, they even encourage Sara to marry a man, selected by her father, whom she dislikes.
Supported by tradition, Mr. Smolinsky assumes the right to make a profit from his daughters. Sara, demanding the right to live her own life, confronts her father, who is ensconced among the holy books that the women are not allowed to...
(This entire section contains 799 words.)
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touch. Backed up by the law of patriarchy that has blinded him to the rights and worldly needs of his wife and children, he justifies her duty to him: “Now, when I begin to have a little use from you, you want to run away and live for yourself?” Fueled by years of internalized anger at her father’s absolute control, Sara saves herself from a life of submission.
Starving herself to save money for school, Sara’s desire to realize the American Dream is marked by ambivalence. The childhood nickname “blood and iron,” bestowed on her by her father, signifies her opposition as well as likeness to him. Hating his tyranny, yet yearning to express their shared love of study and knowledge, Sara finds in secular education a spiritual bridge to the Jewish tradition of learning which shuts out women. Disdaining arranged marriage, she still wants her father’s approval of the man she chooses for herself. Sara’s attempt to reconcile her heritage with American culture, she realizes, places her “between two worlds,” but she accepts that uncomfortable position as the only possible one.
Characters Discussed
Sara Smolinski
Sara Smolinski, the youngest of four daughters of Reb Smolinski and his wife. As early as age ten, Sara is intelligent enough to understand the unhappiness and frustration imposed on her Jewish immigrant family by the poverty and squalor of their Hester Street tenement and the zealous domination of her Old World father. Sara also sees the failure of her sisters to free themselves from the domestic tyranny of their father. With a strong will and sense of purpose, she rebels against the old values and follows her “Americanized” way to personal and social freedom. Her aspirations impel her to leave home and to live on her own wages earned as a laborer in a laundry. She becomes educated and begins her career as a teacher.
Reb Smolinski
Reb Smolinski, referred to as Father, a Polish-born despotic zealot and Hebrew scholar who stubbornly applies the literal meaning of the principles of the Torah to life in America. Reb’s religious views, which are in obvious conflict with the values of the New World, make him a selfish tyrant. He insists, as the Torah commands, that his daughters work to support him in his studies. Every penny that they make must be turned over to him; every action that they perform must be geared to his comfort and needs as a holy man of God. He is impractical, unable to survive on his own, and completely dependent on his wife.
Mrs. Smolinski
Mrs. Smolinski, referred to as Mother, his wife. She sees the disparity between Reb’s ideals and the demands of the new life, but she supports her husband as a dutiful wife. She respects him for his principles, but she is clearheaded about the need for survival and often scolds Reb for his foolishness. Strong and practical (she rents out part of the apartment for income), she is nevertheless sensitive to her daughters’ wants, especially to Sara’s attempt to succeed.
Bessie Smolinski
Bessie Smolinski, the oldest daughter, the first to bear the burdens of “giving bread” (providing financial support) to the family. If she had any aspirations, she has buried them in the selfless performance of her duty. At her father’s behest, she marries Zalmon the fish peddler, a widower with a large family. As second mother to the family, she becomes a drudge.
Masha Smolinski
Masha Smolinski, Sara’s beautiful sister. At first, Masha’s love of finery and an “American” lifestyle keeps her above the squalor of immigrant life, but ultimately she, like Bessie, accedes to Reb’s arrangements and marries a dull, loveless parvenu in the garment business. Although Masha initially “escapes” from the Hester Street tenement, she is no more liberated in mind and spirit than Bessie is in body.
Fania Smolinski
Fania Smolinski, the last sister, delicate and childlike. Her life is ruined when she, like all but Sara, marries a man chosen by her father. The husband turns out to be a gambler, and Fania lives on the verge of starvation.
Hugo Seelig
Hugo Seelig, the principal of Sara’s school. A quiet, educated man whose parents came from a neighboring village in Poland, he falls in love with Sara, in whom he sees a kindred spirit. He does not believe Reb’s accusations of Sara’s familial disloyalty. He acquires the old man’s respect and approval by becoming Reb’s pupil and learning Hebrew. At the novel’s end, Hugo and Sara become engaged.
