By Jessica Granse
january 29, 2009
“’You know that I have on my tongue what I have on my lung, Tamara. I mean what I say, and we want no match-makers. America is now treife to me,’” (803).
Asriel is having problems with Shaya and Flora’s want to conform to American ways.
“The Imported Bridegroom” is obviously much about the hardships of moving from one culture to a completely different one. It includes hardships like homesickness and learning the new language and concepts, but the most prominent subject seems to be that of cultural identity. I found an article that gives a discussion of it in more complicated terms and more depth, so I would like to take the idea of interpreting it in terms of interior identity and public identity, but in a much simpler way. The main point from the article on the Article Archives website, “Marvels of Memory: Citizenship and Ethnic Identity in Abraham Cahan’s ‘The Imported Bridegroom’” is explained in one particular sentence, “Particularly in the central character of Asriel Stroon in "The Imported Bridegroom" can we see the narrative of a lost interior identity, but we can also delineate a recuperated public identity through Asriel's son-in-law Shaya.” Now, the first question that came to my mind was why we were studying Asriel and Shaya but not Flora. Easily, I figured out that in order to have a real discussion about the separation of identity between interior and public caused by the move from Pavly to New York, they would have had to experience this move. Flora, however, was born in America and thus did not first have the exposure to living in this really Jewish culture in Pavly and then being removed from it and put into this American society. Instead, all of her experience of Pavly was secondhand through her dad. He reinforced values of the Jewish religion upon her and her friends also followed these values by taking these broken English-speaking men from Pavly as their husbands. The thing he fails to remember is that they are now in America. They’re in a different place and there’s a different norm. In America, it is allowed for a girl to marry any man, of any religion, of any occupation, as she chooses. Alternatively, within this Jewish culture, a girl of one social class, depending on her father’s occupation, is to marry a man of that same class and occupation as well as for him to be Jewish. This is unimportant to Flora. Instead, it’s more important to her that the man is an American doctor than that he’s Jewish. Flora is dealing with more of an independence issue than identity, because she wants the ability to think for herself, while her father wants her to stick to tradition. Shaya and Asriel then are what we’re left with. Shaya must choose whether to go with his new passion and in turn obey Flora, or stick to tradition and obey Asriel. He is burdened with the difference between what he was and what he wants to become. Asriel has no confusion between whether he wants to stick to tradition or change, because he’s all for tradition. He does however have a confusion stemmed from Shaya and Flora’s want to conform to American ways.
Asriel is having problems with Shaya and Flora’s want to conform to American ways.
“The Imported Bridegroom” is obviously much about the hardships of moving from one culture to a completely different one. It includes hardships like homesickness and learning the new language and concepts, but the most prominent subject seems to be that of cultural identity. I found an article that gives a discussion of it in more complicated terms and more depth, so I would like to take the idea of interpreting it in terms of interior identity and public identity, but in a much simpler way. The main point from the article on the Article Archives website, “Marvels of Memory: Citizenship and Ethnic Identity in Abraham Cahan’s ‘The Imported Bridegroom’” is explained in one particular sentence, “Particularly in the central character of Asriel Stroon in "The Imported Bridegroom" can we see the narrative of a lost interior identity, but we can also delineate a recuperated public identity through Asriel's son-in-law Shaya.” Now, the first question that came to my mind was why we were studying Asriel and Shaya but not Flora. Easily, I figured out that in order to have a real discussion about the separation of identity between interior and public caused by the move from Pavly to New York, they would have had to experience this move. Flora, however, was born in America and thus did not first have the exposure to living in this really Jewish culture in Pavly and then being removed from it and put into this American society. Instead, all of her experience of Pavly was secondhand through her dad. He reinforced values of the Jewish religion upon her and her friends also followed these values by taking these broken English-speaking men from Pavly as their husbands. The thing he fails to remember is that they are now in America. They’re in a different place and there’s a different norm. In America, it is allowed for a girl to marry any man, of any religion, of any occupation, as she chooses. Alternatively, within this Jewish culture, a girl of one social class, depending on her father’s occupation, is to marry a man of that same class and occupation as well as for him to be Jewish. This is unimportant to Flora. Instead, it’s more important to her that the man is an American doctor than that he’s Jewish. Flora is dealing with more of an independence issue than identity, because she wants the ability to think for herself, while her father wants her to stick to tradition. Shaya and Asriel then are what we’re left with. Shaya must choose whether to go with his new passion and in turn obey Flora, or stick to tradition and obey Asriel. He is burdened with the difference between what he was and what he wants to become. Asriel has no confusion between whether he wants to stick to tradition or change, because he’s all for tradition. He does however have a confusion stemmed from Shaya and Flora’s want to conform to American ways.
20 points. "Instead, it’s more important to her that the man is an American doctor than that he’s Jewish." Exactly.
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