Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Hodgepodge of Yekl
Consider the passage on the "human hodgepodge" from pages 13-15 when Jake approaches the dance hall. How does Cahan present the city, starting with "Suffolk Street is in the very thick of the battle for breath"? What elements does he stress? What can we say about his style when discussing the people of the city? Are they broken by the city? Are they more important than their surroundings? Also, why is this passage a lead-in to the dance hall?
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I love the imagery of that line, " Suffolk Street is in the very thick of the battle for breath".(pg. 13) It describes city streets perfectly. Walking around in New York or Boston, it's a struggle to get from point A to B. literally cannot breathe because of the overpopulation of the melting pot. I also thought of word that we used last year in Intro to Film and Lit. " indexality"
ReplyDelete*forgive me for my terrible spelling*
The imagery Cahan uses to project the frenzy of the city street is brought into the next scene as Jake enters the dance hall. He leaves the "waltzing storm" and enters "an uproarious human vortex" (15). This transition of the narrative from one dense scene to another suggests the compacting effect of the urban environment on its inhabitants; inside and outside, the urban infrastructure of New York permits a crowded society. This crowding is important to consider when we attempt to understand the ethnic diversity of New York.
ReplyDeleteAs stated before, I really like the imagery of "Suffolk Street is in the very thick of the battle for breath." (Pg. 13) because it shows the conditions of the time, how everyone was so close and packed together in the major cities of the United States in the 1890's. In the wake of Industrialization and Urbanization, cities were growing, but not growing enough for citizens moving in from the countryside, and for immigrants coming into the country to find the American Dream. As a result of this, tenements were set up, whole families lived in a single room, and living conditions were terrible. Therefore, every day was truly a fight for survival.
ReplyDeleteThese kinds of descriptions are what I find most interesting about this book. While Cahan makes a point to describe the physical setting in which most scenes take place, he seems to more focus on the feel of things. He places the reader in the mindset of Jake and therefore into that of a common immigrant. The confusion and discomfort inherent with being in a new country with different social conventions and what have you can make for difficult assimilation. Also, being as that most immigrants were shoved in to small “ghetto” areas such as the one described on Suffolk Street, areas with a diverse population of immigrants coming from multiple backgrounds, this scene seems to illustrate the sense of equality amongst each of the groups; the “American Dream” can be attained by any of these people. But in that equality of opportunity, much like Dylan’s comment before me, there is a sort of dog-eat-dog sense about the environment. This idea I think is best served by the first line about the “battle for breath”. It seems like the author is trying to say that while each man is equal in opportunity, each is not equal in ability and everyday is a struggle to acquire even the most basic of necessities.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about "the fight for survival"-----that's what a lot of 1890s naturalist fiction is about...Darwinian survival. BUT... is that what Yekl is about? Or, as I've blogged on, is Yekl a "naturalist" work?
ReplyDeleteI like this idea of:
"each man is equal in opportunity, each is not equal in ability..." So, Cahan sees an essentially fair world? Where others would see in-equality in opportunity?
The imagery that is shown in this section really helps describe what Jake is seeing as he makes his way to the dance studio. Jake talks about the "swarms of bedraggled half-naked humanity (p.13), and goes on to describe how it was hard to find "fresh air" (p.13), and how the atmosphere is just a dark and dreary place. It is also interesting to see how jake is able to put many different labels on all of the jews. Jake talks about there being "Lithuanian Jews, south Russian Jews, Russified Jews, ect." (p.13-14). The "human hodgepodge" is ilistrated by the description that Jake gives while he is making his way to the dance studio. Jake's description of the hodgepodge present a more positive view when it talks about "children dancing" (p.14), as well as music being heard. These are all examples of what the city was like as well as the hodgepodge that was surrounding Jake. Josh W.
ReplyDeleteI think it's also important to note the rather specific conditions of Cahan's description of the "human hodgepodge" in this scene. The narrator states that although its "component parts" have changed, they have "not yet fused into one homogeneous whole" (14). The parts of the human hodgepodge have changed; Jake himself, especially when juxtaposed with Gitl, is Cahan's most vivid image of the "component part changed." The component parts, like Jake, have not "fused" into larger collective units. We may reasonably consider Cahan's metaphor as it applies to the human hodgepodge of New York, the many immigrant ethnicities resembling the components; or we may apply it specifically to the Yiddish New York Ghetto. This simultaneous presence of change (in culture, values, language, etc.) and inability to conform to the society imposing that change is what Cahan is trying to exemplify with Jake.
ReplyDelete