My Last Hollywood Script By Anzia Yezierska Summary

Topic: Discuss the personality of the writer, Anzia Yezierska.

When people gain fame and recognition, their personality changes because of the a broader worldview. They live in ivory towers and criticize less successful people by their standards. In “My Last Hollywood Script” by Anzia Yezierska, she gives a speech to the students in a university to reinforce her superiority and authority in writing and the incident reveals her boastful, suspicious, and dynamic personality. First, Yezierska tries to impress the students by exaggerating the obstacles she has faced in the past. She claims that “every step of the way up in [her] writing career was enough to kill [her] if [she] [has] not been stronger than death” (13) while her sister decides to accommodate her despite having nine children and insufficient food. One day, when she steals a loaf of bread from the children, she attempts to justify it by comparing a mother’s right to steal for her hungry children and her “right to steal to finish [her] story” (22). She later admits “[her lust] for the glory of the limelight” (27) which proves her desire to impress the students through exaggerations and thus her boastful personality.

Before she starts her speech, because of her presumption of superiority, she concludes that the students are “filled with blind faith, crying for miracles … [and] peering into [her] to discover the formula for quick success” (3). Her biased perspective reinforces the inferiority in the students because she assumes that they have not sacrificed anything for their writing career. After her speech, Yezierska “[sees] the [students’] hunger for recognition at any price” (27) and judges their desire based on her own, leading to her suspicion and fear that the students will replace