Bread Givers《Real Bread Givers!》

The book “Bread Givers” deals with several social norms of both her traditional Russia homeland and coming to America to pursue a better life has come to know. The book is more like an autobiography to her personal experiences. The narrator illustrates her own immigrant experience and struggling of finding her own life which the most immigrants are familiar with.

One of the protagonists in the book is the narrator’s father Reb Smolinsky who is a representative of the Old World. He is a Jewish Orthodox rabbi a scholar of Torah. He has no worry about paying bills and rent in spite of the landlady came to claim rent. His male centered sexist view about the women represents the old world traditions. For example he eats the best portion of soups and only leaves the thin watery part to his wife and daughters; he has his own room where he piles up all of his books but the rest of the family squeezes in a narrow room. He spends his days cooped up at home to study and does not work to support his family. However everything he practices is contradicted by his actions and later proves to be false. For example when his wife is worried about unpaid bills he comforts her that money is not important and only the spiritual life associated with God can be the gold and money to every human. Yet when the time comes to merry off his daughters the only thing he cares about is money. He does not care how his daughters feel. Their desires and opinions mean nothing to him. He thinks that women are no brain and are not able to choose a right husband. He also thinks that women don't deserve to make their choice and he has to be the one to choose for them. Her daughters’ happiness in marriage is not important. He treats his Daughters and wife as brainless slaves who are born to serve their men. “Heaven and the next world were only for men. Women could get into Heaven because they were wives and daughters of men Women had no brains…” (9) So he sees the marriages of his daughters simply as business between him and those who paid the most. The father will make a big profit by selling his daughters to be savants to their husbands.

Sara the narrator and her father have different ideas of what the daughters' role should be. Sara believed that she should be able to choose what her life will be; she does not want to be looked upon. She refused to pick coals from the ashes because she felt herself like a beggar asking for food. She knows that she has the right to be free to choose her lifestyle and does what she wants. She becomes a very independent person to work hard to sell herrings and keeps some of her hard earned money for herself. She is also matured enough to realize that the father should get a job instead of reading the Torah all day long over and over. She makes it clear throughout the book to criticize her father’s irresponsibility and selfishness. However her father refuses to work and he believes that his wife and daughters would work and bring money to the family. In the meantime he practices the Torah which is useless. He calls Sara hard heart and accuses her for deserting him not working in his store and not contributing her wages to him. He says that she is heartless and does not remember all the good things that he has done for her. I think his actions contradict his words. Because in real life he is a selfish person he has ability to work but he refused to work which does not support his family in any way. He put all the burdens of life on his wife's shoulders and even if his youngest daughters has to work to support him. It makes us rethink about the book title” Bread Givers”. Who are supposed to be the one who give bread? Definitely it is the men themselves. But in the book women devote their lives to support man who is considered authentic and significant.