Independence

Women's oppression in the Jewish society works strongly in the system of marriage, but, ironically, the oppression is acquiesced in by women themselves. For example, the father's kind look is enough to make the mother happy: "His kind look was like the sun shining on her" (11). Therefore, even though she keeps complaining about his not taking care of his family, Sara's mother can even say to the father, "I'm only a sinful woman . . . I'm willing to give up all my earthly needs for the wine of Heaven with you" (12).

However, although Reb Smolinsky embodies the heritage of orthodox Jewish patriarchy against which Sara must struggle, the father himself seems to suffer a transformation, influenced by the money-seeking American society, from an eccentric whose piety is outmoded and economically disastrous to a shrewd neighborhood leader whose piety is a vehicle for mobilizing family and community. He begins to sell his services as a rabbi not through devout religious practice but through the abstraction of his faith into a symbol that generates success (Ferraro 554-55). His transformation is suggested in the chapter title, such as "Father Becomes a Businessman in America." But even though he partly accepts the American way of life, it does not necessarily mean that he gives up his tyranny in his family. On the contrary, his tyranny seems to become stronger when he tries to frustrate his daughters' love for the sake of making more money. Not any sort of 'bread giver,' he interferes with each case of love-affair of his daughters to earn more money by selling off each of his daughters to one unsuitable husband after another, and literally sells off Bessie to a fish peddler for five hundred dollars. When he urges his daughters to obey his will, he ceaselessly emphasizes woman's inferior status in the world: "What's a woman without a man? Less than nothing---a blotted-out existence. No life on earth and no hope of Heaven" (205).

Meanwhile, on the part of the daughters, marriage is the only recourse to escape from home, the bedrock of oppressive patriarchy. It is evident in their explanation of the real reason for their marriage. For example, Fania says that ". . . even if Abe Schmukler was a rag-picker, a bootblack, I'd rush into his arms, only to get away from our house . . . . If I seem so excited about Los Angeles, it's only because it's a dream city at the other end of the world, so many thousands of miles away from home" (80), while Mashah says that "I didn't care about any man any more. I only wanted to run away from home" (83). Not surprisingly, those marriages turn out to be a failure, since the marriages were a choice not to confront the realities but to escape from them.

By contrast, Sara believes that by becoming a teacher, and economically independent, she can gain a key to unlocking the oppressive status she is given as a Jewish woman. In the final intense encounter with her father, Sara declares: "My will is as strong as yours. I'm going to live my own life. Nobody can stop me. I'm not from the old country. I'm American" (138). Despite all the obstacles: the extreme poverty, her mother's appeal to come back, Fania's urge to marry, Sara goes on with her journey upwards. How firm she is in her determination is explicitly suggested in her refusal of Max. She is almost caught with Max, but at the last minute is disillusioned by his completely money-oriented way of life. Max declares: "it's money that makes the wheels go round. With my money I can have college graduates working for me, for my agents, my bookkeepers, my lawyers. I can hire them and fire them . . ." (199). At this, Sara suddenly comes to realize that to Max "a wife would only be another piece of property" (199). When Father blames her for not having accepted Max's proposal, Sara again comes to face with patriarchal tyranny, realizing that to her father as well, she was "nothing but his last unmarried daughter to be bought and sold" (205). After this encounter, she refuses to subject herself to the prison of marriage, and decides to stick to her own belief that she needs an independent life of her own. Sara refuses to suffer a "boss of a husband to crush the spirit in me[her]" (177).

After all the struggles, finally she becomes a teacher, a status whereby she can be true both to her culture and the American ideal of independence. Her dream seems to be realized, but it is so merely on the surface, which is indicated by the fact that this fairy tale text has strong elements of incongruity inscribed in it. For instance, when she first goes to college, she thinks that she has to change herself "inside and out to be one of them" (214). However, even though she reaches the position she has been craving, Sara still feels herself an outsider. She realizes that she can never be one of them: "I was nothing and nobody. It was worse than being ignored. Worse than being an outcast. I simply didn't belong. I had no existence