ENG100H1 Lecture Notes - Lower East Side, American Realism, Protofeminism
Document Summary
Genre of yekl and the imported bridegroom: novella. Cahan was a journalist, long time editor of the yiddish daily forward. Wealth of info, in-depth understanding and strong political awareness is infused in the fiction. These short stories are vignettes of cultural life and struggle of jewish immigrants in the lower east. Gitl negotiates complexities and conflicts that are unique for jewish women, The jewish immigrant woman faced discrimination from within the jewish society, as well as wider society, which is always a subtext. Cahan called proto-feminist for paying attention to the challenges faced by women, but prof does not think he necessarily critiqued gender roles in the feminist way. He was interested in jewish family life minutiae, through which he shows concern for the experience of the jewish woman. Yekl is in the tradition of american realism, which: Invoilved local color, strict fidelity to individuals in a particular time and place.
