STUDY QUESTIONS

Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers (New York, 1975)

1) What were some of the ways in which the novel suggested immigrants, or their children, could escape from poverty?

2) How did "tradition" in the novel hinder socioeconomic advance? How did it facilitate it?

3) Would you describe the narrator as a fully modern, Americanized woman? Why or why not?

4) Although the narrator had no memory of Poland, why did her "Polish roots" strike a chord with Hugo Selig?

5) In what ways did the caricatured figure of the father serve to highlight the clash of "old" and "new" worlds?