Values and status are linked together in every society. Status is given to the persons who embody the values of that social construct. The values of the Old Country, Russia, were those of spiritual and religious piousness and learning. Therefore those who studied religion, like Reb Smolinsky, were among those who held the highest status. However, in America, these values were not the same. Immigrants soon learned of the capitalist nature of a materialistically driven land where whoever had the most wealth held the most status. The question arises, what happens when people in a society with one set of values enter a society with different values? To assimilate successfully, the immigrant’s values must undergo a change. In her novel Bread Givers, Anzia Yezierska tells the tale of an immigrant family who has difficulty coping with such a clash of values. Reb Smolinsky in particular is a character that craves his status so much so that he changes his values in America and adopts something he doesn’t understand, thus ruining his family.

Jews in Russia lived differently than they did as immigrants in America. In Russia they lived

dictates the terms, methods, and goals of what Bessie the eldest calls ‘working ourselves up’” (Ferraro, 554). Unfortunately these terms, methods, and goals for which Reb Smolinsky has set for himself and his family prove unrealistic in a situation where the Reb himself refuses to work. Instead he wishes to capitalize off of his family so that he can strengthen the value of his own status.

xviii). Instead the country looks highly upon those who have acquired wealth, and Father can make no money in this country off of his religion. Thus stubborn with his notion that he should do nothing but learn all day long, and conflicted with his desire to be of high status, Father decides he must find alternative ways in making money.

Thus Reb Smolinsky is determined to find the means of advancing his status in his new country. He knows little of capitalism except that he wants to have money. And he devises his own schemes in order to acquire it. Thomas J. Ferraro, Yezierska critique says in ‘Working Ourselves Up’ in America: Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, “It is [Reb] Smolinsky (with increasing enthusiasm) who

the scholar’s position as community exemplar. Nevertheless, Reb Smolinsky held on to these values and traditions. (Wilentz 35)

Reb Smolinsky needs his status so much that he changes his values so drastically and ultimately ruins the lives of his family, marrying his daughters into misery, exiling another daughter, and working his wife so hard that she dies of illness. By adopting a value system that was completely unbeknownst to him Reb Smolinsky buries himself and everyone affected by him into misery or poverty. That is, all except his one daughter, Sara. Because Sara Smolinsky is strong enough to defy

Some topics in this essay:
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