Essay on 'Becoming a Writer' by Russell Baker

Yezierska’s Breadgivers, Baker’s Growing Up, and Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, all demonstrate the idea of The American Dream. For Yezierska, Baker, and Moody, their version of the American Dream was different. They went through many obstacles to try and achieve their version of the American Dream. In Yezierska’s novel, Sara Smolinsky’s dad stood in the way of achieving the American Dream. Her definition of the American Dream did not change, it stayed consistent throughout her childhood and into her adulthood. Her definition of the American Dream was achieving economic stability and having an education. In Baker’s memoir, poverty was an evident challenge since it occurred during the Great Depression. His definition changed from trying to achieve stability to reaching his lifetime goal of becoming a writer. In Moody’s memoir, her race stood in the way of the American Dream. Her goal of the American dream changed from getting out of Centreville to advocating for African American rights during the Civil Rights Movement. The American Dream was very difficult for Sara, Russell, and Anne to overcome, because of poverty, family members, and race.

In Yezierska’s novel, Breadgivers, Jewish immigrant Sara Smolinsky went through many hurdles to achieve the American Dream. Her definition of the American Dream is economic stability and having an education. Her father, Rob Smolinsky, was a major factor in her achieving the American Dream. There are many examples throughout the novel that prove this. During an argument with her father, Sara says, “You think I’ll slave for you till my braids grow gray- wait till you find me another fish-peddler to sell me out in marriage! You think I’m a fool like Bessie” (Yezierska 138). This argument led Sara to the decision to move to New York City. Sara is finally exhausted over her father controlling her and her sister's lives which prompted the decision that she wanted to live independently and not have her father breathing down her neck. Sara loves her family deeply, but she knows what she has to do to set herself up for a better and brighter future. The future her father had envisioned for her was not the future Sara had for herself. For example, a quote from her father says, “I am an old man. I lived longer than you. I know what’s good for you better than you know. . . It says in the Torah, Breed and multiply. A woman’s highest happiness is to be a man’s wife, the mother of a man’s children”(Yezierska 206). Her dad wants her to be a housewife and work for the man, instead of being independent. He tried to set up a marriage between her and a man named Max Goldstein and Sara refused. His beliefs in the Torah get in the way of what his daughter actually needs and wants to achieve the American Dream. All he is focused on is his religion, and his being bashful toward her is one of the reasons why she moved to New York City. Sara wanted independence, education, and economic stability to accomplish the American Dream. She knew she was not going to reach any of those goals if she did not leave her father. She had no form of profit when she moved to NYC, so she had to buy a small, run-down apartment. But, she knew if she just focused on her plan of getting an education and making a profit, she will eventually work her way up and get the life and living space that she desires to accomplish the American Dream.

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Throughout the book, you can tell that stability has been an issue for her from childhood to adulthood. A quote from Sara, after she moved to NYC, states “The first thing when I opened my eyes, I counted out the money I had left in my little knot. Only 3 dollars and sixty-five cents between me and hunger. A job. And I must get it at once” (Yezierska 160). This shows that even the smallest amount of money that she makes, it’s going to make a difference. It is the difference between eating or going hungry. After moving to New York, Sara realized that she wanted to get an education to become a teacher. This was a major goal for her in the book to achieve the American Dream. “Glad but down-hearted I was glad because I’d won, but so sad I was to leave the battlefield! The thing I had dreamed about for so many years- and now it was over” (Yezierska 232)! This quote shows the rough times Sara has been through, but her striving for what she wanted to accomplish, paid off for her. This was a huge win for Sara, as it was one of the major goals she wanted to accomplish.

In Baker’s memoir, Growing Up, a white male named Russell Baker went through tough times to achieve the American Dream. The Great Depression took place during his lifetime so which made times even tougher, because of this major event in history, poverty was an evident challenge to his achieving the American Dream. Early in the book, Baker, his sister, and his mother often bounced around different family members’ homes, hoping to find a stable job with good pay to survive. To help his mother with pay, he got a job as a newspaper boy at a young age: “All that year, she walked the streets, combed the classified ads, sat in offices waiting to talk to possible employers, and always heard the same refrain: No jobs” (Baker 98). The Great Depression affected people’s work life and employment. No matter how many jobs she applied for, the chance of her getting one was scarce. Once times got really tough, they were forced to get government relief. “Being on relief was a shameful thing. People who accepted the government’s handouts were scorned by everyone I knew… I’d often heard my mother say the same thing of families in the neighborhood suspected of being on relief… Now, we were as low as they were” (Baker 200). This shows that the Baker family once shamed other families for having relief, but now they are on it, they’re ashamed of it: ashamed of how they let this happen, how the mother couldn’t provide food for her kids, and couldn’t keep a steady job. It reflects on how the Great Depression affected Baker’s road to achieving the American Dream.

Russell Baker’s definition of the American Dream changed from trying to achieve stability to fulfilling his lifetime goal of becoming a writer. Throughout the book, becoming a writer was a huge objective for him to accomplish. As shown in the book, “Writers didn’t have to have any gumption at all. I did not dare tell anybody for fear of being laughed at in the schoolyard, but I secretly decided that what I’d like to be when I grow up was a writer”(Baker 27). Baker’s inspiration for deciding to be a writer at such a young age comes from his love of reading and writing stories which made him believe that “what writers did couldn’t even be classified as work”(Baker 27). Later in the book, he says that, “The editors of the high-school yearbook asked each senior to reveal his career ambition. I could hardly put down ‘to be a writer.’ That would make me look silly”(Baker 241). He was embarrassed because most of the seniors in his class had more ‘manly’ ambitions or as he described it, “money-making work.” After graduating from John Hopkins, he began working for The Baltimore Sun for $30 a week. Which he described as, “an insult to a college man”(Baker 321). But, he knew he was going to have to work his way up to become a successful writer and achieve his American Dream.