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Midterm2 (2013 midterm2 assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2013 #1: Research Report Starts |
LITR 4333
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Anzia Yezierska: A Diamond in the Rough
I honestly do not know what it was about
Anzia Yezierska but she spoke to me in a way that no other writer has up to this
point in my life. Through her narratives, I could feel what she felt, her
sadness, anger, her faith, and because of this; she is whom I chose to do my
research report on. The only bit of information I knew about her before research
was that she embodied the immigrant narrative with
Soap and Water, she came to the New
World with the American Dream glued into her brain, despite her struggles, and
she would eventually achieve her American Dream in becoming a writer. In
conducting research on her, I wanted to learn about her life as immigrant
growing up in America, how she became a writer and her success.
My research was conducted online with the
use of research databases on the UHCL website as well as exploring through
Google and what I found was astonishing. Anzia’s birth is not certain due to
reasons that she kept changing it to modify her age within the Literature world
to not seem so old but historians put it between 1880 and 1885. She was one of
many siblings to a Polish Jewish family. Anzia and her family immigrated to the
United States when she was fifteen years old. When they arrived at the historic
Ellis Island, they were given a new surname of Mayer and she was also given a
new first name, Hattie because it was easier to not only pronounce but spell it
as well. Her family would settle into an apartment in the Lower East Side of New
York. Her life as a teenager was depressing, while she and her sisters worked in
sweat shops, her brothers received top notch education. Her father refused to
assimilate to the dominant culture and kept his Old World ways of the daughters
supporting the family until they are married. Frustrated by these ways, Anzia
left home and found in a room in a girls home. While there, she manufactured a
fake high school diploma to get into Columbia University where she studied
science to become a teacher. Once she graduated, she taught for a while and
became bored with it, and then she had a brief stint at the American Academy of
Dramatic Arts where she studied to become an actress. Unfilled by that as well,
she was inspired by her sister’s advice to become a writer.
In 1913, she began her quest as a writer. At
first she had a hard time getting published but Anzia pushed on until she got
her big break. Throughout her entire works of writings, they all reflect on some
biographical aspect of her life. It was also essential to her that she relate in
words the ways of the ghetto life to the American readers. She also felt that it
was imperative to represent not only the immigrant narrative but through a
woman’s eyes which was uncommon at the time. Her books published in the twenties
came with dismal reviews from the mainstream Americans as well as from her
Jewish community citing that her characters were too predictable but the
immigrant experience was interesting. The Jewish community did not like the
majority of her works because they felt she painted their culture in a poor
light and used over dramatic stereotypes. Her response to her critics was that
the language was necessary for the readers to understand the ghetto life style.
Her most famous and highly acclaimed book to date is
Bread Givers which was published in
1925. The book was her fictional autobiographical novel that reflected her life
as a teenager and how she was able to break away from her highly religious
father. She would go on to write more short stories and books but would not have
anything published after 1950. She died in California of a stroke on November
21, 1970.
After getting background knowledge of Anzia
and her life works. I further want to explore how her works in particular made
an impact in the immigrant narrative. She was very adamant about believing in
the American Dream and showed that through her writings. Not only was her
central focus on the immigrant narrative but also her autobiography that is
depicted in every single work that she ever wrote. With reading reviews and
analysis of her stories, I want to make the connection of her as an immigrant
writer to the immigrant narrative and how it impacted the world of Literature.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 221: American
Women Prose Writers, 1870-1920. A Bruccoli
Clark Layman Book. Edited by Sharon M. Harris, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
The Gale Group, 2000. Pp. 381-387.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 28:
Twentieth-Century American-Jewish Fiction Writers.
A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Daniel Walden, Pennsylvania State
University. The Gale Group, 1984. Pp. 332-335.
Erens, Patricia Brett. "Anzia Yezierska." In Jane Gaines,
Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center
for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University
Libraries, 2013. Web. 1 Nov 2013.
Horowitz, Sara. "Anzia Yezierska." Jewish Women's Archive.
Jewish Women a Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia . Web. 2 Nov 2013.
