The voice is very ethnic (Jewish NYC.” Can you identify how different it sounds?
What do you think of how the school is running the Christmas play? How is that reflected in the city around them?
What is the point Shirley’s mother is trying to make?
What point is the father trying to make/
Humor is an important part of this story. Where is the humor and what kind is it?
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This piece was an interesting one fur sure. It was an interesting view at a religious world in turmoil, through a child's eyes. The ethinic voice I had a hard time picking up on, while the voice of the child was easy to get. For example on page 94 when talking about Mrs. Glace she says, "She almost forgot to thread the star on its wire, but I reminded her." It's easy to hear the proud child's voice. But that may be the point. Though the child is clearly strong, she's not a strong Hebrew first, she's a strong child first. Which makes her perception of the world a huge contrast to her mother. The school's running of the Christmas play I believe was a form of accepting the many cultures into their lives. It was interesting way to show tolerance without brutal political correctness. Another demonstration of how things were back then. It was never really about political correctness at all. The director was more making a political statement.
ReplyDeleteShirley's mother has a justified fear of being exterminated. In one way or another. Shirley's father was not really concerned about the Christmas play because of ll that they had been through before, this was kid stuff. But Shirley's mother feared being religioulsy stamped out in a more clever way. By putting them into the melting pot with everyone else. Asking them simply to conform As I said Shirley's father did not feel as strongly on the topic as the mother did because I think he had a better understanding. One must first allow yourself to conform before they can make you like everyone else. So I think that the father knew that after all they had overcome already, a Chrismas play was no threat to their individuality. The humor is between the father and their family, and there's also humor because of who the narrator is.
This short narrative not only allowed us to be a part of a world we could never fully understand but also reminded us of how a child's fresh perspective can turn conflict into opportunity, hatred into love. It was fascinating to me...
ReplyDeleteThe voice of this piece was unique;you could tell the cultural influence in it. Not just the old culture either, but the new culture the child (Shirley) was becoming a part of. Both the parents'and the girl's mannerisms were distinct('Ach','ssh','kissed my pinky and looked at God'...) and atypical to what some would call "American" behavior.
The school's running of the play could be looked at as two forms of assimilation into American society. The first could be sinister, where the white Christians are attempting to make the Jewish immigrants like themselves and throwing their culture to the wayside. The second could be seen as encouraging, a sign that the Christians wanted the new Americans to feel welcome and learn about the culture of the land they had moved to. Some people accepted the way the play (and the neighborhood overall) was being conducted (Mrs. Kornbluh, Shirley's father) while others despised it (Shirley's mother, the neighbors who avoided the Christmas tree and the butcher).
People like Shirley's mother felt that they had left one evil for a lesser one-the Jewish immigrants were still facing religious discrimination/persecution just in less obvious ways. Those like Shirley's father on the other hand felt that in order to live a new life the immigrants must have a new perspective. He did not wish to throw the old culture away but modify it to fit American society, one where things weren't ideal but better than in Europe.
Since the author had not faced a life of discrimination like her parents, she was idealistic/optimistic about the world around her. She used her talents to prove herself where lashing out wouldn't. She didn't bow to the unfair situation but embraced it so she could be happy where she was.
I liked the humor in this piece between the parents (ex: 'Have a lemon it'll sweeten your disposition') because it showed how different their views were but also how they had stayed together through all the trials of their lives. I also liked the subtle humor the author used herself to show how hypocritical her fellow immigrants were being at times ("The rabbi's sife said, 'It's disgusting!'...but under the narrow sky of God's great wisdom she wore a strawberry-blond wig", "Poor thing, [christmas tree] it was a stranger in Egypt") Plus just her situation in general was humorous, mostly because she let it be. She did not become a victim to her situation and basically "stuck it to them".
Hats off to you guys...I loved reading your posts. There is no doubt blogs allow you to really develop your own unique view.
ReplyDeleteThe ethnic voice in this piece didn't really stand out to me. I did notice that the characters used expressions such as "ach" and "ssh", which are not associated with the American culture, but even these seemed to be rather subtle. I think that the school is running the Christmas play as "one size fits all", which obviously doesn't work. They are performing a Christian play, even though there are a fair amount of families in the community who are Jewish. Although some of these Jewish families are accepting of the Christmas play, there are just as many who despise it because it opposes their beliefs. This is shown by the people who went out of their way to avoid looking at the Christmas tree that had been set up. The point that Shirley's mother was trying to make was that by joining in with the Christian traditions, they risked losing their own heritage and source of identity. ("..we fall into a creeping pogrom, that our children learn a lot of lies..") On the other hand, Shirley's father felt that the idea of Shirley performing in the Christmas play was not a very big deal. He seemed to understand that assimilating into another culture was natural, but it doesn't mean that you have to give up your own as well. The humor in this story wasn't blatant, but it fit well. I found that most of the humor was in the first few paragraphs of the story and in the dialogue between Shirley's parents. The humor may have been added for entertainment, but i believe it serves a better purpose as a "buffer" between the two sides of the conflict.
ReplyDeleteThe voice of the piece to me was not drastically different than how I would assume a non Jewish American child would speak. It is more the voice of the child that stood out to me, not the voice of her ethnicity.
ReplyDeleteThe school running the play seems to be set in their ways. They're doing some big Christmas production yet the narrator of the play is a Jewish girl. It is fine that she is in the play and good that they don't discriminate against her; yet it seems as though they don't think about how the Jewish community feels. They could have just done a holiday play instead of a "Christmas" play. They went pretty in depth too..
Shirley's mother is not very welcoming of the idea of Shirley being in this play. She won't tell her daughter what to do, but she doesn't feel that the school is going about this right.
Shirley's dad supports his daughter in whatever she wants to do but he doesn't support the school's stance either.
The humor helped this piece to not be so intense...since it is a pretty powerful subject. Shirley and her father share the same sense of humor and it lightens the mood while addressing a serious topic.