Old Hash: Anzia Yezierska Revisited

I wrote this in my lit theory class a few years back and dredged it up today for "class discussion leading purposes" in Ethnic and Minority Lit. Keep in mind that this was written at the beginning of my English career, so perhaps you'll forgive the clunkiness and just plain ignorance found here.

“In every work of literature the writer has reworked elements taken from experience, in such a way that interconnections between them and the whole from which they were ‘abstracted’ are revealed.” – Cliff Slaughter

I’ve chosen to examine Anzia Yezierska’s The Lost Beautifulness with both Marxist and reader-response theory. I’ve found some interesting things in texts using Marxist criticism in the past, but I’d like to qualify my use of it here by paraphrasing Julian Markels The Marxian Imagination; Markels makes the point that Marxist theory is at its root, a primal act of imagination. To me this means that while I can apply a Marxist viewpoint to Yezierska’s story and use the vernacular of the theory, it’s still just an option. I do my best not to make any claims about the author’s intentions or any such thing. For me, Marxist literary criticism is more of a novelty, one that fits well into many texts because of its focus.

Marxist criticism, unlike most other literary theories, was not developed on its own as a means of interpreting writings. Since Marxism itself focused on the struggle of power between the proletariat working-class and the bourgeois, it fits that Marxist literary theory would work well since most stories are based around some sort of conflict. When you attempt to put on the Marxist mask, you can easily see almost all conflicts in relation to status and power. I believe that since the literary theory developed from this philosophical system, which existed outside of stories before it was used to interpret them, it’s more easily applied to most writings. While the terminology used in Marxist criticism is quite important, I’ll do my best to explain them along the way instead of giving you a vocabulary list here to jump back to.

“The Lost Beautifulness” Through Marxist Eyes

On the surface, Yezierska’s story sounds like it plays right into the hands of a waiting Marxist critic with typical results. The story starts with Hanneh Hayyeh, a Jewish woman, exclaiming how beautiful her newly painted kitchen looks. She has scraped and saved the past few years the money she’s made washing linens for a wealthy American woman, Mrs. Preston. Hanneh got the idea of painting her kitchen pure white after seeing how Mrs. Preston’s shone. She invites all of her Jewish friends in to see it, and soaks up their praise. After she tells Mrs. Preston about it the next day, the landlord comes over to collect the rent. Hanneh practically drags him to the kitchen, to which he merely says “Very nice,” after a quick glance and takes his rent money and leaves. Two weeks later, he raises her rent, telling her that the apartment is now worth more because of the kitchen, and he’s charging her accordingly. She briefly considers going to a pawnbroker or Mrs. Preston for help, but immediately dismisses both thoughts. Two weeks later, the landlord raises her rent again, and she goes to see Mrs. Preston. She offers twice to help her financially, but Hanneh seems insulted and rejects her assistance. She says that she’ll only settle for justice. She goes to court over the matter and loses, gets evicted, and destroys the kitchen out of spite with an axe the night before. Her son Aby is returns home to find his mother and all their possessions sitting out on the street in the rain.

So right off the bat we can see some definite class struggle that drives this story. Hanneh is obviously a member of the proletariat working-class. She is at the mercy of two members of the bourgeois, the upper-middle class who employ the proletariat, the landlord and Mrs. Preston. The landlord has status and financial power over Hanneh, and Mrs. Preston also has some sway being the provider of Hanneh’s income. So far, the situation is reasonable, without exploitation or abuse. The problems start with the painting of the kitchen, and the motivations behind it. Hanneh has fallen victim to the commodification of her kitchen, or placing value on it not for any utility that it has but for the impression that it leaves on others. She’s reaching for the sign value of it, the ability of the item to impress others rather than serve a pragmatic purpose. The landlord sees the opportunity to make more money, and on the reasoning that he can kick her out and find new tenants anytime, raises her rent twice. Hanneh doesn’t seem to have a choice in the matter, and when she takes him to court, she loses.

That’s where I saw the typical Marxist parallel ending, and a more interesting view of the theory evolving. Let’s look first at Hanneh’s state of mind throughout the ordeal: She starts off being overwhelmed with the beautifulness of the kitchen because she’s comparing it to Mrs. Preston’s. She attached sign value to a white kitchen since the member of the bourgeois she knew best had one. This is a form of false consciousness, or an unconscious acceptance of an unfavorable social set-up. Valuing a newly painted kitchen is most certainly not going to benefit someone in Hanneh’s position who can barely make enough money to eat day to day, yet she’s been fooled by the system into thinking that the kitchen is somehow valuable to her. We see this idea of reverence for the bourgeoisie before the trouble starts in the story as Mrs. Preston is honestly complementing Hanneh on her skills as an “artist laundress.” “The hungry-eyed, ghetto woman drank in thirstily the beauty and goodness that radiated from Mrs. Preston’s person. None of the cultured elegance of her adored friend escaped Hanneh Hayyeh. Her glance traveled from the exquisite shoes to the flawless hair of the well-poised head.” (Yezierska, 1256). Hanneh is obviously very aware of Mrs. Preston’s prestige, and admires it a great deal. She didn’t just hear Preston’s praise; she drank it in thirstily, like she needed it. Praise from someone in Preston’s position is immensely important to Hanneh, because of this state of false consciousness.

Hanneh says at one point, “Everything I do is done for my Aby.” (Yezierska, 1257). I think this is questionable looking at how she treats the kitchen. After painting it, Hanneh has her husband in with the expectation of praise. Then she invites her friends in to marvel. Then the landlord. And Mrs. Preston. All for something that realistically has no use for her, but she’s incredibly proud of it all the same and wants everyone else to feel the same way. I think it can be argued that she’s actually doing these things for herself, being caught up in the idea of being a little bit closer to Mrs. Preston in status.

After the first rent increase, I started to see an underlying idea that both supported and contradicted my use of Marxist criticism. Hanneh seems to make it through the two weeks of increased rent, albeit with meat or milk, but at the second increase she snaps. She didn’t approach anyone for assistance after the first increase, but instead went to Mr. Sopkin, the butcher for a sympathetic ear. She comes in wailing, to which Sopkin says, “Hanneh Hayyeh! What to you happened?” The next line shed some light on my idea and gave me a new theme to search for in this story: The idea that Hanneh is using the system to suppress herself. “His sympathy unlocked the bottom depths of her misery.” (Yezierska, 1259).

What I mean by that is that typically Marxist criticism seeks to expose how those with power flaunt it and keep it out of the proletariat’s hands. That makes sense, and there are countless examples in literature and history where you could delve into that idea. But here I started seeing Hanneh actually existing in this power struggle with the (perhaps unconscious) intent of keeping herself in the lower ranks.

After the second rent increase, Hanneh admits that although her first instinct was to run to her husband, she needed sympathy, so she went to see Mrs. Preston. Somehow, she has gone from distressed to enraged during the trip over. Mrs. Preston does sympathize with Hanneh and tells her that she’ll see that she gets the rent that’s needed. Hanneh explodes. “I want no charity – You think I came to beg? No – I want justice!” (Yezierska, 1260). She tells Mrs. Preston that the last time rent went up she went without milk and meat; she doesn’t know what else she can give up. She tells her that she gets so desperate for meat sometimes that she feels she could tear the world to pieces. Mrs. Preston acknowledges the injustice of the situation, doesn’t deny that it’s awful, and tells her the in the meantime, she must accept some help to tide her over and offers her some money again. Hanneh reacts as if she’s being insulted, calling it “hush-money” to keep her quiet, and again demands justice. She then takes the landlord to court, where she has such as slim chance at winning, as the courts arguably favor the upper class.

Here I had another idea of a false consciousness that Hanneh had fallen into. She seemed to think that the only way to live, the just way to live, was to rely on laws and justice. The idea of accepting help from a friend as graciousness, not a loan with interest, was not even an option to her. It was a slap in the face to be offered assistance. This false consciousness also helped keep her trapped where she was. Had she accepted Mrs. Preston’s help, she wouldn’t have been evicted or starving. This is also where the role of the bourgeoisie was somewhat bent in this story. Instead of trying the keep the working class down, “in their place, and keeping power out of their hands, here is an example of one trying to lift up a lower member.

Reader-Response

This leads me directly into an alternate reading of The Lost Beautifulness, one taken from the perspective of a reader-response critic. There are two main avenues which a reader-response critic will normally travel down; describing how a reader should respond to a text, or by relating the critic’s personal response. I’ll be focusing mostly on the latter style, because no one likes to be told what to think, and my personal response is terribly exciting. This is admittedly a subjective response, based on the experiences that I, Matt Gaither, have had and how they influence how I read this story. Reader-response criticism is not, however, useless to anyone other than the critic. Readers more or less fall into categories of “interpretive communities,” where they share similar goals for what they’re looking for in a text, and can therefore benefit from the musings of someone else in their community.

When I found that The Lost Beautifulness was written about a Jewish woman, by a Jewish woman, I wondered if anything that I knew about the history of the Jewish people would come into play. A few pages in, I noticed some Marxist characteristics that stood out to me and I pursued them with some interesting results that sparked a reader-response response in me towards the end of my investigating. It started with my idea of Hanneh seeming to choose misery and poverty over the help of a friend. Something about this seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite pin it down. I can’t quite place what it was that made the connection for me, but I suddenly was thinking: Wait a second. Hanneh’s story is a pretty decent parallel to the Biblical story of the Jews. And what a coincidence, it’s written by and about the same people. The Jews were always at a place of privilege in God’s eyes throughout the Old Testament. They were his “chosen people.” Hanneh enjoyed the favor of a benevolent person in Mrs. Preston throughout the story. Just like the Jews of old, Hanneh had a strong connection to the law, and thought that everything should revolve around it. She showed this in her demand of justice being dealt to the landlord, and taking the entire situation to court, a system of laws. The emphasis on laws wouldn’t be as big of a deal if there wasn’t an alternative. According to the Bible, the Jews were offered a place in the New Covenant with God through Jesus in an act of grace. Grace, to them was the antitheses of law. They were comfortable following the law of Moses to the point of tithing even their spices, but the idea of “free grace” was wholly unacceptable to them. Such was the case with Hanneh and Mrs. Preston as well. Mrs. Preston knew what Hanneh needed, rent money. Hanneh was too proud and reliant on her sense of justice to accept the free gift. Mrs. Preston, after being insulted by Hanneh and accused of being on the landlord’s side, realized that even a free gift can’t be given if the recipient won’t take it. The idea of Hanneh accusing Mrs. Preston of conspiring with the landlord fits into this analogy too, as the Pharisaical Jews first denied Christ’s offer of grace, and then accused Him of being sent from and in cahoots with Satan Himself.

At this point, I wasn’t entirely convinced that my response has enough substance and twist to be interesting. Upon wrapping up my Marxist view, however, I was stunned to realize that I’d neglected the climax of the story: Hanneh destroying her new kitchen with an axe out of spite! The Pharisees had Jesus killed out of their spite for him, and because they refused His free gift. All they were left with was their bitterness and their law, which didn’t end up saving them at all. Hanneh was left in the same position as the law had failed her and she still had all her resentment, so she destroyed the most beautiful thing she had. The entire situation could have been resolved much more peaceably had both parties accepted grace.

In his essay Is There a Text in This Class?, Stanley Fish lets us know that he’s much more concerned with what a text does as opposed to what it means. What it means, under Fish’s thought, has more of a connotation of one, objective meaning that needs to be picked out by the reader. Fish argues that instead of texts having formal features identifiable at all times, it’s instead the reader that projects those features onto the text. Readers then, according to Fish, create literature, not authors. This can certainly be seen as a direct contrast to formalism which looks exclusively at the text, as reader-response puts all the focus on you.

So What

I feel like The Lost Beautifulness set my mind in motion in a way unlike anything I’ve read before. I know that this is quite the sweeping statement to make, but let me try to explain myself. When I first read this story, I remember feeling frustrated at having to endure ANOTHER ethnic-American writing that was little more than immigrants lamenting their state in this cruel, heartless America. I’d read too much of it in too little of a time-span. After reading through it a few times while applying Marxist criticism, the words took on a new dimension. Seeing something below the surface of tears and wailings sparked more of an interest for me. I was comparing The Lost Beautifulness and How I Found America, another of Yezierska’s stories, with Zora Hurston’s personal essay How it Feels to Be Colored Me and short story Drenched in Light. My original thesis for this comparison was to show through formalism how dramatic events in ones life can actually make for poorer writing. My logic behind that was the idea that if you have an extraordinary circumstance to write about, it becomes easier to focus less on your style, syntax, and other aspects of crafting stories. This was all mainly based on my initial dislike for Yezierska’s story, and my admiration of Hurston’s willingness to write positively when she could have easily jumped on the wagon of depressive writing like so many others.

However, after diving into Yezierska’s work with a literary eye (and some patience), I discovered a richness and complexity there that would’ve remained hidden had I not pursued. Or rather, the stories themselves showed me richness and complexity in something that I had originally disregarded, to put it in a more reader-response-friendly tone. The texts also revealed a connection to me between my literary tastes and my musical ones. I’ve often found that pieces of music that I don’t like right off the bat, but let soak in and acquire a taste for end up sticking with me and becoming my favorites. Something that sounds good to me right away rarely has that lasting power. The process of digging into Yezierska’s stories showed me that that attitude of mine is not limited to music, but can also be applied to literature, and who knows what else? This process hasn’t stopped with the conclusion of Yezierska’s story, or this essay. The Lost Beautifulness has caused me to question nearly all of my current likes and dislikes and force myself to ask why, and did I give the dislikes a real chance like I gave the story?