Two Worlds
In the book entitled Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, Sara Smolinsky deals with the clash of the Old World and the New World as an immigrant in New York in the 1920s as she struggles with placing her individual values over her family. On the other hand, James Baldwin in his book, The Fire Next Time, wrestles with segregation and racial discrimination between the white and African-American worlds amidst the Civil Rights movements. Both books address tensions between two different worlds as they struggle to either integrate into a particular world or completely separate themselves from it, each addresses struggles between generational values and both deal with oppression in the form of various types of discrimination.
Both Bread Givers and The Fire Next Time parallel each other in the sense that they address the conflict between two different worlds. Bread Givers presents the dilemma of Sara having to choose between either integrating fully into American society or accepting her family’s traditional values. Sara struggles with her father, symbolizing the Old World, on different viewpoints of values on gender roles, love, and marriage. Sara becomes enraged at her father for breaking off all the engagements of his daughters and then arranging marriages, leaving Sara’s sister stuck and unhappy. “And don’t forget it, you are already six months older - six months older - six months less beautiful - less desirable, in the eyes of a man... ‘What are you always blaming everything on the children?’ I burst out at Father. ‘Didn’t you yourself make Fania marry Abe Schmukler when she cried she didn’t want him?’” (85). However, she is not able to really do anything because of the fact that she is the youngest woman in the family. In addition, Sara struggles with gender discrimination. When she looks for rooms in New York after running away from home, she is rejected by female landlords just because she is a girl. “‘I don’t take girls.’ And the woman slammed the door.” (157). Moreover, Sara struggles with discrimination against immigrants. As a Jewish immigrant, Sara found it hard to fit in with other American college students because of the way she dressed as well as the language barrier. “After that, I was shut out like a ‘greenhorn’ who didn’t talk their language.” (180). Thus, it can be seen that Sara struggles with finding a place for her to fit in as she neither fits in her heavily gender-segregated, patriarchal family nor in New York as she is ostracized for being “different”.
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On the contrary, The Fire Next Time presents the issue of African-Americans stuck in a similar situation of gaining equal rights by deeply reviewing Christianity and the Nation of Islam in historical and societal contexts. In Down at the Cross, Baldwin talks about how Christianity is used to reinforce racial segregation and is a tool for white men to able to conquer African Americans as described “The white man’s Heaven is the black man’s Hell.” (45). Elaborating on the point, “Those virtues preached but not practiced by the white world were merely another means of holding Negroes in subjugation.” (23). In this quote, Baldwin says that through Christianity, white people were able to create moral standards for black Christians to adhere to, while they themselves did not follow them in order to take advantage to better subjugate the African Americans. Moreover, Baldwin elaborates about Christianity being used in both politics and morals in the United States to favor the white world. “In the realm of power, Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty-necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.” (45). As opposed to what the majority of African Americans believed, Christianity actually operated with great arrogance and cruelty in the United States and took advantage of the African Americans’ misconception to control them. As a result, Baldwin concludes that “The spreading of the Gospel, regardless of the motives or the integrity or the heroism of some of the missionaries, was an absolutely indispensable justification for the planting of the flag.” (46) [Emphasis added]. In this quote, Baldwin states that Christianity resulted in benefitting the white world by allowing them to gain control over African Americans, regardless of the actual motives in spreading Christianity. Overall, Christianity promotes the segregation of African Americans. On the other hand, the Nation of Islam mirrors Christianity in the fact that they emphasize separation, but this time separation from the white people. For instance, the Nation of Islam’s central doctrine is, “All White people are cursed, and are devils, are about to brought down.” (49). Therefore, both Christianity and the Nation of Islam as religions in the United States, only drive inequality, oppression, and separation between the white people and African Americans, hindering the efforts for African Americans to gain equal rights.
In both the Bread Givers and in The Fire Next Time, Sara and Baldwin come to the conclusion that escapism is not the right solution to handle their respective problems. Towards the end of the story in Bread Givers, Sara ends up living with Hugo in New York. After Sara’s father remarries, he declines in health and turns to Sara for help. Sara, despite finally being able to assimilate into American society at this point, chooses to take in her father. This is because she realizes that her father’s behavior is one that cannot be helped because it was taught to him. She also concludes that although she wants to be her own independent person in the New World, she does not completely want to throw away her heritage as well as her family. In other words, she is not leaving one world for the other, rather she is compromising so that she can accept a part of both the Old and the New. In the same sense, Baldwin pushes that African Americans must know the history of their people’s oppression and come to accept African American history. He also does not believe escapism through the Nation of Islam is the right solution either. Baldwin emphasizes the first step of his solution is to accept African American history and its current situation. “The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise in power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American Dream.” (88). Baldwin, states that although African Americans might not be able to gain power in the United States, the black people are still in a good place to instill some change in the United States through the chaos and close the “curtains” on the American Dream. Going further, Baldwin firmly believes that African Americans’ situation will likely not change in a long time and believes that it is essential for one to not deny this fact. “And thus there is no possibility of real change in the Negro’s situation.” (85). However, he suggests that the solution may lie in the true meaning of love. “Love is not a personal sense but as a state of being.”(95). Racial tension is not due to real antipathy. Rather, “it is involved with color rooted in the very same depth as those from which love springs or murder. “(95-96). In particular, the resolution is to “consent to become black himself, be become a part of that suffering and dancing country that he now watches.” (96). This essentially means that African Americans must know and accept black history and love as being a state of being. How can black history be used as part of a resolution? He considers that “Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.” (104) He cautioned that “Blacks must not take refuge in delusion and value placed on the color skin.” (104). Although he does not offer a detailed plan to resolve racial tension, his resolution is well inferred, despite a lack of concreteness and detail, and has a deep resonance coming from his profound reflection on the root of racial tension involved with the then-current two major pillars of religion during the Civil Rights Movement, Christianity and the Nation of Islam. Therefore, the solutions that are presented in both books are similar in that both deny escapism as a valid solution, but rather compromises that utilize both worlds, whether Old or New or white and black.
In conclusion, even though The Fire Next Time and Bread Givers address different issues, they share many similarities in regards to their responses as well as suggested resolutions. Both books address the tension between two conflicting worlds where people are faced with the situation of having to either choose one world or the either. In addition, the books also share generational issues in the sense that Sara in Bread Givers deals with accepting the Old World through her father, while Baldwin addresses the struggle of African Americans to accept their own history. Finally, both address different types of discrimination. Overall it can be learned that one cannot simply choose one world over the other as Sara initially did by completely rejecting the Old World to assimilate completely into American society. Instead, it must be done in an approach similar to what Baldwin suggests, to accept one’s history and move forward, and also what Sara does at the end of Bread Givers when she chooses to not forget her Jewish heritage and history although she is somewhat integrated into American society.
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