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"America and I" by Anzia Yezierska
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Transcript
"America and I" by Anzia Yezierska
Sources
Summary of "America and I"
- Mikkelsen, Ann. "From Sympathy to Empathy: Anzia Yezierska and the Transformation of the American Subject." American Literature 82.2 (June 2010): 361-88. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.
- Shapiro, Ann R. "The Ultimate Shaygets and the Fiction of Anzia Yezierska." Varieties of Ethnic Criticism 21.2 (1996): 79-88. JSTOR. Web. 5 Oct. 2013.
- Tuerk, Richard. "Jews Without Money as a Work of Art." Studies in American Jewish Literature, vol. 7, no. 1. 66-79.
- A poor girl emigrates to America to start a new life
- Begins working as a maid for a rich American family, gets no pay after one month
- Goes to work at a sweatshop and despite harsh conditions, she prefers it
- Stands up for herself and gets fired
- Gets job at a factory, but still unhappy
- Goes to a Women's Assn. and gets vocational guidance, gets a dose of reality
- Realizes she gets to make her own America
- In the end feels guilt for those in poverty
- Call to action
Research
Research
- She was categorized as ethnic, but didn't really fit in
- All her stories have a poor Jewish girl
- Always a "Gentile" that helps her
- Yezierska and poor Jewish girl take after her scholarly father more than her submissive mother
- Fits in better with Americans than Jewish culture (women's roles and having her ideas heard)
- Sympathy vs Empathy
- Sympathy is "patronizing perspective of white-middle class"
- Progressive Era reformers
- "Prepared to be sorry for him because you are safe and superior"
- Empathizing is different
Key Themes
- Alienation: "Who am I? What am I?..."
- Contrast between the rich elite and working class
- Realistic hopefulness of America and self
Stylistic Techniques
Who is Anzia Yezierska?
- Fictional autobiography
- Yiddish
- Isolation vs assimilation
- Everything from her viewpoint
- Emigrated from Russian Poland to New York
- Worked in sweatshops and lived in poverty
- 1881-1970, wrote "America and I" in 1923
- Wanted to use her European name
- Met a feminist who encouraged her to write
- She made up a high school diploma and went to Columbia University in the teaching program
- Her father disapproved of her as a writer
- Her work centers on Jewish life, immigrants, women, urban life, and the working-class
Why is it proletarian lit?
- It's written to common people
- Focuses on working class struggles
- Outcome oriented
- Realistic
- Characters are types
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