Bread Givers Gender Roles

In Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, Yezierska depicts an immigrant family living in poverty during the 1920s. The narrator Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter out of a family of six watches her family go through marriage, poverty, death, and the evolution of the family dynamic. Sara watches all three of her sisters being forced to marry to men that don’t love because of their status. In the end, Sara decides to move out of the house at 17 to escape the oppressive environment of her Orthodox Jewish father, so she could pursue her dream of becoming an educated teacher. The Bread Givers shows the disconnect between the first and second generation, the alternative gender roles in an immigrant household, and the importance of marriage. Overall, this book shows a different viewpoint of the 20th century. In the Smolinsky household, the reader is shown an entirely new idea of family gender roles. Normally men are depicted as the “breadwinner,” and this ties with the idea of male masculinity. Men feel like it’s their duty to be to one who provides for the family, and this is a result of the idea that “profession and work” is a man’s proper

At the end of the book, Sara is able to become college educated and she’s a successful teacher working at a public school. However, all of Sara’s sister are not as lucky and end up being ruined by their controlling father. The Bread Givers gives the reader a vivid insight into the inner workings of an immigrant family struggling in poverty during the 1920s, and the burden placed on the women in the story to continue to provide for the family. In the house, the opposing generations constantly clashed between Old World Ideas of misogyny and women’s proper role vs. the ideas of the New World like independence and love. In the end, The Bread Givers shows an alternate view of the booming wealth and flapper dresses constantly associated with the