Author: klaudiakapo

Who are the “Bread Givers”?

When I first saw the title of the book I never really thought about what it meant, and it was until the end of chapter seven that I finally was able to connect the title and its meaning to the novel. At the end of chapter seven, after Sara’s father Reb drives his oldest three daughters away from love and then foolishly loses $400 on an un-stocked food store, his wife has enough of it and yells at him, “If only I were a widow people would pity themselves on me. But with you around, they think I got a bread giver when what I have is a stone giver,” (p 141). A bread giver is literally the person who gives the family bread, the one who puts food on the table and supports the family financially. Traditionally in a Jewish household this is supposed to be the male figure. It is expected for the man, the father, the husband, to go out and make the most money so that he could feed his family. Women are considered inferior to men. They aren’t smart enough to be on their own. They aren’t even good enough to get into heaven unless they are married to a man. However, Reb Smolinsky is quite the opposite of a breadgiver, and his choice in sons in law show to be quite the same.

It is ironic how a man who is so devoted to his religion and his culture, acts the total opposite than what is expected of him. In the public eye he seems to be a loved figure who brings wealth to his family through his public display of preaching and bragging. But in reality it is his daughters and his wife who are the ones bringing the money home. They are the ones who need to take care of him because he doesn’t even work claiming that his brain is worth more than money. And at the same time he expects to be the head of all financial decisions, dumb enough to purchase an empty food store without consulting his wife, the real brain of the household.

Since Reb figuratively has the title of a bread giver he has the ultimate say on who his daughters marry. And so he ends up picking out men that are like him, men who claim they are able to support their wife when in reality all they do is try to support themselves leaving the burden of the household on their wife’s back. When his daughters try to marry the men they love, Reb finds a reason to kick them out, whether they be too poor, unreligious, or too greedy. He finds a flaw in each of them but when his choices turn out to be horrible men, he doesn’t see it and blames the girls. For the beautiful Mashah her breadgiver is a fake, he acts as though he has money spending it all on his looks so that he can look rich, when in reality his family is starving and Mashah has to be the one to get money to pay the bills and even buy milk for her children. For the smart Fania, her bread giver too is a fake, as he gambles away everything leaving her miserable. And for the hardworking Bessie, her bread giver that promised to take away her burden gave her a bigger one instead with a business to help out with and five step children to take care of.

Seeing the way that her mother and sisters are treated by the men they are around shapes Sara into being the young woman that she is. Ever since she was little, Sara knew to never feel the need to be dependent on a man to take care of her. Her goal in life is to be an independent woman, with an education and no need for a man to support her. She is her own bread giver, she provides for herself, and shows everyone that her American dream means that she can finally be someone other than just a wife or a mother. That females here are just as equal as men. Sara breaks through the barrier and defeats the stereotype of who the bread giver really is.

Building Relationships of the Dancing Scene

The dancing scene at the 1 hour minute was one that started unfolding Jenny’s and Amsterdam’s relationship, and creating tension in Johnny and Amsterdam’s relationship. The camera follows Amsterdam into the dance hall and as soon as he enters it, it immediately turns to Jenny letting us know these two characters are going to be the focus of the scene. When the camera turns again we see Johnny’s hopeful face and then the camera slides down to Amsterdam standing next to Johnny looking uncertain. Camera movement helps build up suspense when the men in line are supposed to look in the mirror as Jenny’s back is turned towards them. The camera shows us the men through the mirror as Jenny sees them and them flips to show us her reaction to who it is. It helps us see things from her point of view. When Jenny doesn’t pick Johnny we see from her facial expression as she giggles that she looks at him like she did the other men. However, when Amsterdam steps up she looks drawn to him left at a loss for words. It is the first sign that Johnny sees that Jenny prefers Amsterdam over him. He already is jealous that Amsterdam is getting closer with the butcher but Jenny is supposed to be his. As the camera follows him while Jenny’s and Amsterdam’s conversation is in the background, it shows that there will be significance to Jenny and Amsterdam’s relationship that ties back to Johnny.

In the dancing scene the conversation feels minimal and cordial between Jenny and Amsterdam. It reveals Amsterdam’s loyal character, he knows his friend Johnny loves Jenny and tries to respect it, he even asks her, “Why didn’t you pick Johnny.” Her response is the last piece of dialogue we hear in that scene and it is rather flirty which leads perfectly into the next scene in which the two characters are kissing. After her response the camera starts to slowly pan out but we don’t lose focus of the two dancing, and we even are able to see Amsterdam finally smile; a smile that looks genuine, something we haven’t seen at all during the movie. Clearly Jenny has a powerful effect on Amsterdam.

The music plays in the background for the entire scene. The only time the music stops is when Jenny is picking a partner and all is quiet except for when Johnny walks up and we hear his music box. We know there’s value to this box that links to the character because we always hear it and the camera always zooms into to it. Perhaps the reason why this music box is so important to him is because it is for Jenny? As the scene comes to an end the camera pans out to show the entire floor is just couples dancing the same steps. Some couples are holding a candle.  The candle is something we see often in the movie. It represents light, so maybe the couples are holding candles to be able to see each other. Later on these candles represent the families who want to riot against the draft. And the same candles are used to light the bodies that are dead due to the draft riots.

In terms of color scheme we see green to represent Ireland. Jenny is wearing a green dress in this scene which contrasts with her orange hair, a characteristic of the Irish people, also another color of the Irish flag. There are lanterns hanging on the ceiling and although all are white lights, there is one green light lantern. As the camera pans out we also see the American flag hanging on the wall. Slowly we hear the music and see the camera fade out and the start of a new scene begins.

Neil Painter Summary

Racism in America today is rooted from the difference in skin color. It is hard for American’s today to see that racism also existed between people of the same color. But the fact is that at one point the Catholic Irish in America weren’t accepted amongst Americans and were oppressed and compared to the African Americans and the Chinese. Neil Irvin Painter explores this history behind the oppression of the Catholic Irish in America in his book The History of White People.

The Catholic Irish also known as the Celts were seen as a race inferior to the Anglo Saxon English. The reasons behind this view were political due to the fact that the Celts were Catholic and the English were Protestant and had been anti- Catholic since the mid- sixteenth century. Due to anti- Catholic legislation the Irish were controlled by the Protestant English settlers and lived in poverty. According to Gustave de Beaumont the degradation of the Irish beat the one of the American Indians and the African Americans.  And so when the potato famine destroyed their main source of food, the Irish were forced to either emigrate or starve. Some like Beaumont blamed politics for the wretchedness of the Irish, but this was an unpopular belief. Many more people held the view of essayists such as Thomas Carlyle, who compared the Irish to animals lacking history; unable to ever contribute to the world.

These anti- Catholic views were already shared by the Protestant Americans by the time that the Irish started to immigrate to the United States in 1840 at the start of the potato famine. Anti- catholic journals had started since 1835 and were scared that the Irish were only in America to convert the nation to start following the Pope. What scared them more, the lowlife Irish would be able to vote and effect the election outcomes. That is why during the 1850’s voter literacy tests were placed in Connecticut and Massachusetts in order to cut down on Irish voters. They were an easy target for Democratic leaders who influenced the Irish to vote for the proslavery Democrats.

By 1855, fifty thousand Irish lived in Boston and worked low paying manufacturing, canal, and railroad jobs. Their open display of drunkenness, laziness, and crime led to the development of the Paddy stereotypes. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a very respected intellectual at the time published writings about the inferior Paddies. Cartoons would draw the paddies as ugly apelike looking creatures in comparison to other Caucasian races who were depicted as more humanlike. The Irish were drawn in comparison to the African Americans, only their skin color differed. They were still deemed as unfit to vote. The Irish hated this comparison and used the color of their skin to try to get ahead of the African Americans. During the draft riots of 1863, the Irish had attacked the African Americans because they didn’t want to be put in the same category as them. For that reason, they voted for the proslavery Democratic party.

Anti- Catholicism even lead to the creation of it’s own political party. During an era of nativism, Catholic churches were being burnt down and violence was being induced. The organization of this violence was lead by members of the “Know- Nothing” party. The members of the party had to be purely Protestant and American born. Their agenda was to curtail the Catholics and the Irish. They did so violently with riots being their signature move. Their anti- Catholic agenda even earned them seats in government. While in power the Know- Nothings were able to bar immigrants from holding office positions and change the waiting period of US naturalization to twenty- one years. Fortunately for the Irish the issue of slavery became an even bigger political agenda at the time and caused the split of the Know- Nothing party. Though they would still face oppression post Civil War, Painter likes to point out that at least had their skin color to help them out.

Famine Irish in Comparison to Other Immigrants

  • Quinn makes a comparison between the slave trade and the Holocaust and the Famine emigration only to reject it later on, why?

Peter Quinn’s first reference to the slave trade and holocaust was to show the difference between the migration of the Irish Potato Famine immigrants as compared to the migration of immigrants to the United States in other situations. He compares the size and impact of the slave trade and Holocaust to that of the Irish Famine, rather than the reasons why the Famine Irish left to the reason why the slaves left Africa and the Jewish left Europe. Quinn tries to make a point that the Irish were involuntarily forced to leave their homelands just like the slaves and the Jews. That is the reason why the “sheer volume of passage” (p 46) of the Irish migration was unlike any America had seen before. Quinn is saying that the only thing similar to it in size was the migration of the slave trade and Holocaust Jews. In other periods of immigration, the migrants had more of a choice and therefore there were less quantities of them.

Later on, Quinn doesn’t necessarily reject his previous comparison between the Holocaust Jews and Famine Irish, instead he contrasts the two migrations. In a way he just seems to be covering himself so that his point isn’t taken in an incorrect nature. He acknowledges that the real reason the two groups left their homes are not on the same level. Overall Quinn just wants to let people know that the reason we don’t have so many first hand accounts from the Famine Irish is because just like the people of any group who has faced adversity to its worst degree (e.g. the Jews and African Americans), they would rather be silent and not relive those horrific moments. All we have is the facts and the history, Quinn wants to know the memories because it is from those that we can characterize history.