Journal Entry "The Imported Bridegroom"

Stephen Greene

English 48B

January 25, 2011

Journal #7, Abraham Cahan

"A nightmare of desolation and jealousy choked her-jealousy of the Scotchman's book, of the Little-Russian shirt, of the empty tea-glasses with the slices of lemon on their bottoms, of the whole excited crowd, and of Shaya's entire future, from which she seemed excluded".(806)

 

"Cahan arrived in New York City in June 1882. Cahan transferred his commitment to socialism to his new country, and he devoted all the time he could spare from work to the study and teaching of radical ideas to the Jewish working men of New York. Cahan joined the Socialist Labor Party of America writing articles on socialism and science, and translating literary works for the pages of its Yiddish language paper, the Arbeiter Zeitung ("Workers' News").^[1] Cahan saw himself as an educator and enlightener of the impoverished Jewish working class of the city, "meeting them on their own ground and in their own language".(Wikipedia, Abraham Cahan)

This passage describes Flora's feelings of jealousy as she watches her new husband, Shaya talk and read with a group of educated men, discussing philosophy.  She came over to tell him that her father, Asriel, had reluctantly agreed to let them marry despite the new-found interest in gentile learning in this former 'prodigy' in Jewish Law.  Flora initially wanted him to learn these things and in fact study to be a doctor, while Asriel's plan for him when he brought him from Pravy was to study religious writings and become his ticket to happiness in the next life. Flora dreamed of marrying a doctor, and so encouraged Shaya to disobey her father and pursue gentile education.  She now sat before her new husband and a ragged company of intellectuals, none fitting her image of hat and spectacles, driving through central park.

Many of the characters in this story seem to be subject to feelings of exclusion and motivated by strong forms of jealousy.  Flora's naive idea of what it must be like to marry a doctor was slowly falling apart in front of her.  She was jealous of her other schoolmates and wanted to upstage them by finding her picturesque husband.  His company was ragged though, a diverse group of disheveled looking educated men.  She never ought to learn herself or to go to college on her own, yet was expecting with an entitled attitude that she would marry into the life that she wanted to live.

Cahan draws a parallel in Asriel's life and in his procuring of his daughter's bridegroom.  Asriel, a self-admitted boor, did not himself learn the teachings of religious scripts or Jewish Law, but rather chased financial success and ended up with quite a large purse.  However, as he aged, he began to fear death and the next life and wanted to rectify himself with the higher power.  Like his daughter, instead of putting forward any effort to improve himself, he travels to his hometown and buys a bridegroom that will save his soul.

It is interesting that of the main characters, the only one who seems to be satisfied for any sustained amount of time is Shaya.  Freed or imprisoned by America, he seeks to quench his insatiable thirst for knowledge.  He is the only one that is putting forth effort to better himself and to reach his goals.  Cahan makes references to both Asriel choking, as he storms out of the synagogue declaring the rabbi himself a liar, and Flora as her jealousy for and exclusion from the educated world surface.  Cahan's successful character is Shaya who is seeking knowledge of all forms.  Asriel and Flora do not strive to improve, but rather rely on others' achievements to mark them with success, each ending in subjective failure.