Breadgiver Character Analysis

BreadGivers storyline is full of different types of relationships. There are familial relationships between Reb and the females in his immediate family, Reb and his son-in-law’s, and the daughters and their husbands. These relationships express one of the main themes of the novel, which is oppression. The men in the Jewish religion are viewed as the “bread-winners”, even though this is not true. They are given priority over women in most matters, and are the ones that dictate every situation. Reb, for instance, thinks that because he is the man of the household that he can choose his daughters husbands, even if it means denying them true happiness. Most of the time they have no input into this decision, even though they are the ones that are

Hugo Seelig, for instance, is the school principal at Sara’s school whom she falls in love with. He is dissimilar from the other men in the novel, because he is kind and respectful and very intelligent- something that Sara admires. In the short time he appears in the novel, he spends building Sara up and making her feel comfortable. It is obvious that he truly cares about her. Other similar characters include Morris Lipkin, the poet that Fania likes, and Jacob Novak, the piano player that Marsha likes. Both of these men seem genuinely interested in their respective girls, however they both differ from Hugo because they are dissuaded from pursuing them by Reb. In this aspect, they are similar to the Sara’s sisters because they become submissive to Reb’s wishes even though they conflict with their own desires. This could be because they are more in touch with their emotions and morals, which is typically associated as a feminine quality. Carol Gilligan explores how women conceptualize their sense of self and morality, stating “women impose a distinctive construction on moral problems, seeing moral dilemmas in terms of conflicting responsibilities. This construction was found to develop though a sequence of three levels and two transitions, each level representing a more complex understanding of the relationship between self and other and each transition involving a critical reinterpretation of the moral conflict between selfishness and responsibility” (Gilligan